Ill-health and child abuse.

Intensive therapeutic work with families, in which child abuse had occurred, suggested that bonding failure related in part to the pregnancy, perinatal experience, and early ill-health of the abused proband and parents. 25 consecutive unequivocally abused children who had 1 or more siblings were selected from our referrals. Six factors emerged as highly significantly over-represented in the proband biography as compared with the control sibling group: abnormal pregnancy, abnormal labour or delivery, neonatal separation, other separation in the first six months, illnesses in the first year of life, and illness in the mother in first year of life. These data suggest that treatment of parents during pregnancy the perinatal period, and early infancy may well be fruitful in the prevention of child abuse.