Primary objective: Studies have documented mother-infant interactions in the context of maternal Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) to be unpredictable and disordered. However, no studies have directly compared mother-infant interaction between women with BPD and other psychiatric disorders. Methods: The current study examined mother-infant interactions in the context of women with BPD, major depressive disorder (MDD), their co-occurrence and healthy controls. Mother-infant interactions were coded for mother and infant behaviour across a variety of behavioural dimensions. Main outcomes and results: Group differences emerged on the domains of maternal smiling, maternal touching, maternal game playing, maternal imitation, infant smiling, infant vocalisation and infant gaze aversion. Conclusion: Differences in mother-infant interactions can be reliably observed across varying forms of psychopathology. Such observed differences may be used to improve clinical treatment of mothers with psychopathology.

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