Mirjami Mäntymaa

Hospital district of South Ostrobothnia, Finland · Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry

The aim of the study was to analyze which maternal factors (depressive symptoms, effect of life events, maternal sensitivity and structuring) and infant characteristics (temperament, social withdrawal symptoms, interactive behavior, genotype, gender) contribute to shared pleasure (SP) in parent-infant interaction. Participants were 113 mother-infan...

Shared pleasure (SP) was analyzed in fifty-eight 2-month-old infants and their mothers in face-to-face interaction (T1, at 2 months). The association of SP with child's emotional and behavioral outcome at 2 years (T2) was examined. SP as a possible protecting factor in the presence of parental psychopathology also was studied. Mean duration of SP m...

Infant social behavior develops in the context of early parent-infant interaction. Persisting withdrawal from social interaction is a sign of infant distress and linked with the existence of risk factors. Impaired social behavior of the infant may not only be an indicator of pathology in the infant, but the first sign of the effect of a psychosocia...

Early childhood feading disorders are estimated to occur in 20% to 40% of normally developing young children. In most severe cases, troubles associated with feading interfere with the child's growth and development and may continue until adulthood. Early childhood feading disorders are discernible into different types of disorder, such as early chi...

Background: Postnatal psychological symptoms have been studied less often in fathers than in mothers. However, recent research shows that fathers' psychopathology may have long-term effects on their children's emotional and behavioural development independently of maternal psychopathology. More research is needed on factors associated with paternal...

This study examined child and parental factors in infancy and toddlerhood predicting subclinical or clinical levels of internalizing and externalizing problems at 5 years of age. Ninety-six children and their families participated. They were assessed when the children were 4-10 weeks old (T1), 2 years (T2) and 5 years old (T3). Child risks (difficu...

Allelic variation in the promoter region of a gene that encodes tryptophan hydroxylase isoform 2 (TPH2), a rate-limiting enzyme of serotonin synthesis in the central nervous system, has been associated with variations in cognitive function and vulnerability to affective spectrum disorders. Little is known about the effects of this gene variant on c...

Distressed infants may withdraw from social interaction, but recognising infants' social withdrawal is difficult. The aims of the study were to see whether an infant observation method can be reliably used by front line workers, and to examine the prevalence of infants' social withdrawal symptoms. A random sample of 363 families with four, eight or...

To examine the ontogeny of emotion—attention interactions, we investigated whether infants exhibit adult-like biases in automatic and voluntary attentional processes towards fearful facial expressions. Heart rate and saccadic eye movements were measured from 7-month-old infants (n = 42) while viewing non-face control stimuli, and neutral, happy, an...

The aims were to examine the association of maternal or child interactive behaviour with emotional and behavioural problems of the child simultaneously and 3 years later, and to assess whether there is continuity in children's emotional and behavioural symptoms from 2 to 5 years. Sixty-five 2-year-old children with their mothers were videotaped dur...

This study examined the association of infants' sustained social withdrawal with parents' self-reported current depressive symptoms and perceived mental health. Two hundred and sixty infants aged 4, 8 and 18 months were examined with the Baby Alarm Distress Scale (ADBB). Parents' depressive symptoms and perceived mental health during the preceding...

The object of this paper was to study how the Baby Alarm Distress Scale (ADBB), developed as a simple screening tool for front line professionals working with infants, correlates with the more detailed assessment method of the Global Rating Scale (GRS) for Mother-Infant Interaction at two and four months. A sample of 127 eight- to eleven-week-old i...

The present study examined the association between a woman's close relationships and mental health and the quality of her maternal behaviour in early mother–infant interaction. A total of 131 mothers and their infants participated in the study. The quality of the mother's childhood relationship with her own mother and her marital relationship were...

The current study investigated factors contributing to mother's early perception of her infant's difficult temperament. One hundred and twenty-four mother-infant dyads participated in the study. Mother's perception of the infant's temperament was assessed with the Infant Characteristics Questionnaire (ICQ). The influence of mother-infant interactio...

This chapter describes in detail the training course for primary health care practitioners (PHCPs) designed for the needs of the EEP project, aiming to promote parent-infant interaction and to ensure that resources are targeted to those families in need of more support. The course is based on the principles of adult learning models and uses a partn...

This chapter explores the effects of the European Early Promotion project training on primary health care professionals, with regard to their knowledge, self-efficacy and ability to identify need in families, and to their satisfaction with the training received. A quasi-experimental group comparison design was developed, in which an Intervention an...

This chapter describes an innovative cross-cultural method of working with families to promote the psychosocial well-being of children and to prevent the development of psychological and social problems. It also presents a study designed to evaluate the effects of the service. Primary health care workers in five countries from Northern, Central and...

Unsatisfying mother-infant interaction has long-term consequences for the child, affecting both child health and development. It would therefore seem reasonable to try to detect possible problems in the parent-infant interaction in early infancy, in order to intervene to try to ensure a better outcome for the child. In this study, a group of primar...

This chapter concerns the outcomes for the families involved in the European Early Promotion Project and presents data collected when the children were between six and eight weeks old and when they were 24 months old. A total of 824 families were recruited from the five countries involved. At baseline, differences were found between country samples...

This study examined the associations of deviant features in early mother–infant interaction and parental psychopathology with symptoms of behavioral/emotional problems in the child 2 years later. Fifty mother–infant dyads were assessed in the study; mother–infant interaction was videotaped at infant’s 8–11 weeks of age, parental psychopathology was...

The aim of this longitudinal study was to examine the associations between maternal depressive symptoms and perceptions of children's problems. One hundred and nineteen mother-child dyads were followed from the third trimester of pregnancy for almost 10 years. Depressive symptoms and background factors of the mothers and the anticipated/perceived p...

Background: Psychological stress is associated with physical illnesses like asthma or infections. For an infant, situations perceived as stressful are highly dependent on the relationship with the caregiver. Constantly poor mother-infant interaction increases the child's vulnerability to stressful conditions and experiences. The aim of the study w...