No abstract

Attachment to the mother at 1 year of age was studied in 46 "high-risk" offspring of index mothers with a history of nonorganic psychosis and in 80 demographically similar control offspring. Attachment was measured in the home in a standardized manner by a modified version of Ainsworth's Strange Situation procedure. Three different patterns, representing "secure attachment" (Type B), "anxiously avoidant attachment" (Type A) and "anxiously ambivalent attachment" (Type C), were defined. While no significant difference on attachment type was found between the total index versus control group, a significantly increased rate of anxious attachment (A + C) was found for offspring of schizophrenics but no other diagnostic group. Attachment type was unrelated to index mothers' psychiatric hospitalization, psychotic status and known mental disturbance during the infants' first year of life, as well as to the infants' sex.

Mother-infant interaction during feeding and in an unstructured play situation was studied in the home at 3 weeks and 6 weeks of age in index mother-infant pairs in which the mother had a history of nonorganic psychosis (n = 42 and 51 at 3 and 6 weeks, respectively) and in demographically similar control pairs (n = 60 and 78). At both ages, interaction was significantly more negative in index than control cases, index mothers showing increased tension and a lack of harmony, decreased social contact, and reduced sensitivity to the infant's needs. Fewer significant differences were found between index and control infants. Mothers in the Schizophrenic, Cycloid and Nonendogenous groups evidenced more negative interaction characteristics than did their matched controls, but the Affective group was not in any way more negative than its controls.

Mother-infant interaction during feeding and in an unstructured play situation was studied in the home at 1 year of age in 46 index mother-infant pairs in which the mother had a history of nonorganic psychosis and in 80 demographically similar control pairs. As was true at the five previous observation ages, some aspects of the interaction were significantly more negative in index than control pairs. Index mothers showed increased tension and uncertainty regarding the infant's needs, increased physical contact during feeding and a discrepancy between the intonation and content of the mother's verbal contact with the infant. Index infants did not differ from controls in behavior in interaction. Across the entire first year, the Cycloid and Schizophrenic mothers deviated most frequently from controls, while the Affectives' interaction was more negative than controls' for the first time at the 1-year observation.

High-risk offspring of women with a history of nonorganic psychosis and control offspring of women with no history of psychosis were studied from the mother's pregnancy through 2 years of age and followed up at 6 years of age. The mothers tended to be older and have somewhat higher parity than did Swedish mothers in general. Sample attrition during the 6-year longitudinal period was significantly higher in the high-risk than the control sample, and selective in both groups. A limited set of early-life variables, investigated prospectively, was selected for studying the antecedents of mental disturbance in the offspring at 6 years. In the high-risk group, disturbance in the offspring was related to maternal anxiety during pregnancy, negative maternal attitude toward pregnancy, and maternal psychotic condition during the period from 6 months to 2 years post-partum, and tended to be related to low social class, male child, active maternal-mental disturbance during pregnancy, prolonged labor and low Apgar score at delivery, neonatal neurological abnormality, and anxious attachment to the mother at 1 year of age. None of these relationships (except low social class) appeared in the control group, and no significant antecedents of mental disturbance in control offspring were found among the limited set of variables studied in these analyses.