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New Zealand babies and toddlers are missing out on mental health care because of staff shortages and lack of awareness, say experts. They warn disturbed babies as young as a few months old can become seriously troubled adolescents.
Denise Guy, a Wellington child and adolescent psychiatrist with 20 years' experience, told the Herald on Sunday New Zealand lagged most countries in providing psychiatric treatment for very young children and their families.
There was a huge unmet demand, such as Plunket nurses, she said. GPs could refer parents, "but it will be a struggle to find someone".
A shortage of trained staff and stretched resources meant infants commonly missed out to older children, whose symptoms were harder to ignore. "It's getting the word out there that that baby is in as perilous a state as that adolescent," Guy said. "It's much better to [treat babies in infancy] than see that child at 6, at 11, at 16."
Guy said babies who needed help weren't "mad". "We're just talking about babies and toddlers whose social and emotional health is compromised, most often because they're in compromised relationships. And it's not because the parents don't want the best for them."
She said mental health problems could affect babies "under 6 months". Basic training in how to read a baby's signals "should just be available to every parent".
Guy stressed treatment always involved the baby's family. "It's not about taking the baby or toddler off and doing something with them separately."
Therapy commonly involves four assessment sessions and 10 treatment sessions, and close observation of the baby with its primary caregiver.
Guy said in some cases, early bonding had been sent off kilter by parental trauma, such as bereavement or postnatal depression. In others, the parent may have been abused as a child.
Sustained stress actually rewires babies' brains, and primes them to repeat these patterns later in life.
"You can't just throw a parenting programme at these parents, some of whom have had the most dreadful experiences."
Auckland child and adolescent psychiatrist Craig Immelman said the idea of babies having mental health issues shocked some people, but he pointed out that "up until maybe 30 years ago there was the view that children and teenagers didn't get depressed", and 50 years ago it was thought infants too young to talk didn't feel pain.
