Identifying and intercepting behavioral health problems in infancy

Infancy is a wonderful time for healthy parents and healthy infants to grow together within healthy home and community environments that support the social-emotional development of infants, thus establishing the foundation for lifelong behavioral and mental health. Pediatric primary care providers (P-PCPs) must acknowledge the paradigm shift to attain behavioral health for all by viewing behavioral health as beginning at the moment of conception and existing on a continuum throughout the life span, delicately balancing between behavioral/mental health and well-being versus behavioral health disorders/mental illness and malady. This chapter examines, analyzes, and evaluates the best available evidence to identify and intercept behavioral health problems prior to conception, post-delivery, and during the first year of life. P-PCPs must assess the mother-infant bonding and attachment relationship, maternal nurturing behaviors, and maternal responses to the infant, as well as the infant’s social-emotional developmental patterns, at every primary care encounter.