Introduction: The Genesis of Mother — Infant Interaction: How Parents Create Persons

Abstract

In the past 10–15 years drug use in our society has increased among women of childbearing age. Concurrently our understanding of the dangers posed by any extreme disruption of fetal life, childbirth, or postnatal care has deepened by an order of magnitude. We have a more comprehensive view of the effects babies, and mothers and fathers, normally have upon one another. Therefore the task of pediatricians, nurses, and psychologists concerned with helping addicted neonatal families is more complex than it was thought to be 15 years ago. The intricacies of the social interactions through which the human mind is acquired, the turn-taking structure which characterizes these interactions from the beginning, the fact that all human parents constantly provide a framework of experiences for their infants’ encounters with the physical as well as the social world, and the sensitive use that a normal mother or father makes of those innate properties of infant behavior to gradually construct meaningful communicative exchanges long before the baby even understands what meaning is: all these aspects of human development are relevant to concerns regarding the effects of maternal substance abuse on the developing fetus and child.