[Regulatory disorders in infancy: data of the leipzig counseling service for parents with infants and toddlers].

Background: About 25 % of children in the first three years attract attention due to regulatory disorders like un-apeasable crying, chronic fussing, sleep- and feeding-disorders as well as excessive temper-tantrums. Meanwhile there are many counselling services in Germany, which provide help for parents.

Patients: Data of 153 families with infants and toddlers till the age of three, who visited the Leipzig counselling service during a period of two years.

Method: Paediatric-neurodevelopmental status and extensive psychosocial anamnesis following a semi-structured interview-guideline.

Results: 74 % of the families attended one or two times, in 60 % of these cases an improvement or solution of the problem occurred. 18 % of the mothers showed depressive symptoms, which are linked to the absence of the partners on a highly significant level. 23 % of the families were acutely psycho-socially stressed; these families were neither able to use the offered interventions in an appropriate way, nor were others able to use it at all.

Conclusions: The surveyed data support the assumption, that early childhood intervention provides help briefly and economically. For the relatively large group of "multi-problem families" in the sample we can not yet offer intervention strategies, which could help these children to reduce their high developmental risk.