Australian parent and sibling perspectives on the impact of paediatric acquired brain injury on family relationships during the first 6 weeks at home.

This study explores the impact of paediatric acquired brain injury (ABI) on family relationships. Twenty-three families (n = 18 mothers, n = 7 fathers, and n = 4 siblings) of children who sustained an ABI requiring treatment from inpatient acute and rehabilitation services reported on their perceptions regarding changes in family relationships since the injured child's return home. Thematic analysis of survey data was conducted.

What do children think about doctors' communication at the Teddy Bear Hospital?

Aim: Excellent communication is essential for health professionals working with children. Teddy Bear Hospital (TBH) is an innovative method of developing paediatric communication skills in health-care students. By exploring the child's perspective of medical students' communication at the TBH, we sought to better understand the role TBH plays in the development of the communication skills in medical students.

Early Emotional, Behavioural and Social Development of Infants and Young Children with Congenital Heart Disease: A Systematic Review.

The experiences of diagnosis of congenital heart disease (CHD), cardiac surgery and hospitalisation(s) are distressing and represent a significant stressor for a child and family, which may impact psychosocial development. This systematic review provides a synthesis of psychosocial outcomes of infants and young children with congenital heart disease who had cardiac surgery early in life. Twenty-eight studies related to infant and young children's psychosocial development, specifically emotional, social and behavioural functioning were identified.

Family Forward: a social work clinical trial promoting family adaptation following paediatric acquired brain injury.

Objective: To test the efficacy of a family intervention Family Forward in promoting early adaptation following a child's acquired brain injury (ABI).

Research Design: Prospective, sequential comparison group design.

Methods And Procedures: Families of children (n = 47) diagnosed with ABI received Family Forward (n = 25): two family counselling sessions plus optional multi-family group session per week or Usual Care (n = 22) during their child's inpatient rehabilitation admission.

Family appraisal of paediatric acquired brain injury: a social work clinical intervention trial.

Objective: To compare the efficacy of a new intervention 'Family Forward' with 'Usual Care' social work practice in optimising family appraisal of a child's acquired brain injury to ensure better adaptation during the inpatient rehabilitation phase of care and early transition home.

Research Design: Single site, prospective, sequential comparison group design.

Methods And Procedures: Families were recruited on admission to an inpatient rehabilitation service based at a tertiary paediatric hospital.

Long-term alteration of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis in children undergoing cardiac surgery in the first 6 months of life.

Children with congenital heart disease (CHD) have poorer neurodevelopmental and psychological outcomes. The mechanisms underlying this remain unclear. One mechanism could be that the stressful experience of cardiac surgery early in life influences long-term hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis regulation.

Family Forward: Promoting Family Adaptation Following Pediatric Acquired Brain Injury.

This article describes a new and innovative social work intervention, Family Forward, designed to promote early adaptation of the family system after the onset of a child's acquired brain injury. Family Forward is integrated into inpatient rehabilitation services provided to the injured child and recognizes the important role of family in child rehabilitation outcomes and the parallel process of recovery for the child and family following an injury. Family Forward is informed by clinical practice, existing research in family adaptation after pediatric acquired brain injury, the resiliency model of family adjustment and adaptation, and family therapy theories and approaches.

Protocol for a study of the psychosocial determinants of health in early childhood among children with cystic fibrosis.

Aims: To investigate the causal associations between family relationships, family functioning, social circumstances and health outcomes in young children with cystic fibrosis.

Background: The anticipated health gains for patients with cystic fibrosis, promised by early diagnosis through newborn screening, have yet to be fully realized, despite advances in cystic fibrosis health care with aggressive management in multidisciplinary clinics and the development of specific medications. Adverse psychosocial functioning may underpin the current lack of progress as it is well recognized that compromised early parent-child attachment relationship experiences and adverse social circumstances have negative impacts on lifelong health status and health resource use, even in healthy children.

Improving lifetime trajectories for vulnerable young children and families living with significant stress and social disadvantage: the early years education program randomised controlled trial.

Background: Children who experience neglect and abuse are likely to have impaired brain development and entrenched learning deficiencies. Early years interventions such as intensive education and care for these children are known to have the potential to increase their human capital. The Early Years Education Program (EYEP) is a new program offered by the Children's Protection Society (CPS) in Melbourne, Australia.

Early mother-infant relationships after cardiac surgery in infancy.

Objective: The critical importance of a secure mother-infant attachment relationship for long-term physical and mental health of the child is well established. Our study aim was to explore mothers' subjective experience of the mother-infant relationship after discharge from hospital following neonatal cardiac surgery.

Design: Participants were 97 infants who underwent cardiac surgery before the age of 3 months and their mothers.

Whose Rights Count? Negotiating Practice, Policy, and Legal Dilemmas Regarding Infant-Parent Contact When Infants are in Out-of-Home Care.

This article takes a human rights perspective with a view to articulating the infant's perspective when the infant has been subjected to abuse, neglect, or both and is reliant on the state to ensure his or her health and well-being. When a young child is removed from parental care, important and often difficult decisions have to be made about subsequent contact between child and parent. We consider a number of dilemmas which may arise for practitioners when they are assisting child welfare decision makers in relation to contact, and acknowledge the limited empirical follow-up studies of the impact of child welfare practice and legal decisions on infant outcomes.

Trauma reactions in mothers and fathers after their infant's cardiac surgery.

Objective: To investigate the prevalence and nature of trauma symptoms in mothers and fathers of infants who had cardiac surgery.

Method: Parents of infants who underwent cardiac surgery before 3 months of age were recruited at the time of surgery. 77 mothers and 55 fathers completed the Acute Stress Disorder Scale 1 month after their infant was discharged from hospital.

Infant cardiac surgery and the father-infant relationship: feelings of strength, strain, and caution.

Objective: The purpose of this study was to examine the father-infant relationship in infants with congenital heart disease (CHD).

Method: Sixty-three fathers whose infants had cardiac surgery before 3 months of age reported on their attachment relationship with their infant within two months of hospital discharge using both qualitative and quantitative methods.

Results: Mean scores on the Paternal Postnatal Attachment Scale and scores for patience and tolerance were not different from previously published community norms, ps>.

Postnatal depression in mothers bringing infants to the emergency department.

Objective: To determine the prevalence of postnatal depression (PND) in mothers of young infants presenting to the emergency department (ED).

Design, Setting And Participants: Prospective observational study of the prevalence of PND in mothers of infants aged 14 days to 6 months presenting with non-time-critical conditions to the ED of a large tertiary paediatric hospital.

Main Outcome Measures: We assessed PND by applying a self-administered validated screening tool, the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS).

Therapeutic play within infant-parent psychotherapy and the treatment of infant feeding disorders.

This clinical article presents an infant mental health approach to the treatment of feeding disorders in infants and toddlers that involves the infant-parent psychotherapist directly working with the infant's representations within infant-parent psychotherapy sessions. The treatment is informed by an assessment of the infant's emotional development, subjective experience, and the dynamics of the infant-parent relationship. This model involves therapeutically using play and words with infants and draws upon concepts from D.

Focusing the lens: The infant's point of view. Discussion of "Brief interventions with parents, infants, and young children: A Framework for thinking".

This is a discussion of the article "Brief Interventions With Parents, Infants, and Young Children: A Framework for Thinking by Louise Emmanuel." Questions of symptom formation, the difference between a defense and developmental phenomena, and different therapeutic techniques are explored from the perspective of The Baby as Subject (an infant-parent psychotherapy approach developed at the Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne, Australia). The relationship between feeding difficulties and the dynamics of the infant-parent attachment relationship are discussed with reference to whether the infant's apparent self-sufficiency is interpersonally generated and whether bids for autonomy are a sign of healthy, age-appropriate developmental drives at play.

Health and well-being in school-age children following persistent crying in infancy.

Aim: To examine the physical and mental health outcomes at school-age of a cohort of children who participated in a randomised clinical trial of treatments for persistent crying in infancy.

Methods: Participants and parents attended for a standard physical examination and clinical mental health assessment of the children. Parents completed the Strength and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ), Child Health Questionnaire (CHQ), Forsyth Child Vulnerability Scale, Recent Life Events Questionnaire, RAND-36 Health Status Inventory and a study questionnaire about medical and socio-demographic characteristics.

Rescue intracytoplasmic sperm injection and preimplantation genetic diagnosis in combination can result in pregnancy.

Objective: To report the birth of a baby from the transfer of one embryo after rescue intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) and preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD).

Design: Case report.

Setting: IVF center.

Clinical predictors of pathological gastro-oesophageal reflux in infants with persistent distress.

Background: Gastro-oesophageal reflux (GOR) is common in infants with persistent crying. Empirical treatment with antireflux medications is common practice, although on clinical grounds it may be difficult to determine whether GOR is abnormal.

Aims: To examine the diagnostic accuracy of clinical predictors of pathological GOR in infants with persistent crying.

Effect of antireflux medication, placebo and infant mental health intervention on persistent crying: a randomized clinical trial.

Objective: To assess the effect of medical antireflux treatment, and of an infant mental health consultation (IMHC), on persistent crying in infants and maternal distress.

Methods: Infants under 9 months of age with persistent crying, and their mothers, were enrolled in a randomized placebo-controlled trial. At enrollment, a questionnaire on demographic and clinical details was completed by mothers, and maternal distress was measured (Experience of Motherhood Questionnaire; EMQ).

1. Problem crying in infancy.

Up to 20% of parents report a problem with infant crying or irritability in the first 3 months of life. Crying usually peaks at 6 weeks and abates by 12-16 weeks. For most irritable infants, there is no underlying medical cause.