[The hospitalization of a mother and her infant in an adult psychiatric department].

In this article, the authors tell of experiences of hospitalizing mothers together with their newborn children in the psychiatric ward for adults in a general hospital in the Paris region since October 1980. They studied 52 cases, 42 of which were related to post-natal depression. This study develops hypotheses leading up to its implementation, describes how it is set up, and specifies the goals of hospitalizing the two together: not automatically separating a child from its mother who develops a psychiatric condition at such a vulnerable age, observing how mother and child interact, evaluating the mother's nurturing skills and how the baby functions, taking therapeutic action for the mother and for the mother-child relationship, and allowing preventive action, a general prevention of mental illness.