Psychological and psychophysiological characteristics of a mother as prognosticating factors of the child’s health

Abstract

The reason for health differences in adults should be searched for in their childhood (Ben-Shlomo, Kuh, 2002). The health of a child at the early stages of ontogenesis and the social and economic environment in which the child lives influence his/her behavior in an adult life (Lynch еt аl., 1997). We made an attempt to understand which of the mother’s characteristics enable us to forecast her child’s health. Subjects: 100 mother-child dyads, among them 95% children of the second year of life and 99% children of the first year of life were given particular diagnoses at birth. There were no children with genetic pathologies. Typical diagnoses were “encephalopathy†and “motor disturbance syndromeâ€. The set of the methods included: a test-inventory assessing relationship of a mother to a child of the first years of life (N.V. Vereshchagina, E.I. Nikolaeva); an inventory for emotional intelligence assessment (D.V. Lucien), a questionnaire for the social assessment of mother (her age, education, the number of children in family, anamnesis’ data), analysis of medical records of children. The regressive analysis showed that the probability of a diagnosis removal is linked to several variables, i.e. the younger and the better-educated a mother is, the more it is probable that her child’s diagnosis will be cancelled. The more children a family has and the higher the child acceptance level shown by the mother are, the more likely it is that the child will fully recover during the first two years of life. Supported by RGNF by17-36-01056.