Offspring of women with nonorganic psychosis: mother-infant interaction at three days of age.

Mother-infant interaction during a feeding was studied at about 3 days of age in 51 index mother-infant pairs in which the mother had a history of nonorganic psychosis and in 73 demographically similar control pairs. Interaction was significantly more negative and deviant in index than control cases, index mothers establishing a significantly more negative emotional climate and less harmony in feeding, evidencing more tension and uncertainty, and showing less social contact toward the infant. Index infants showed significantly less social contact toward the mother and index pairs less reciprocal visual contact than did controls. While the Schizophrenic, Cycloid and Nonendogenous Psychoses groups each differed from their matched controls on a number of variables, the Affective group was not in any way more negative than its controls on interaction.