[The perinatal period and pediatric psychiatry. Reflections on the interworking of a maternity department].

This work is an assessment of the results of routine meetings between a children's psychiatrist and mothers with their new born babies in a general district hospital's maternity department. The approach is to look for early detection of faults in the mother-child relationship. Difficulties can be grouped into simple categories. The presence of a paediatric psychiatrist in a maternity department has made it possible to show up the value of specialised help early on as much for the 25% of women who are distressed after delivery as for the 6-7% that are really worrying cases.