Maternal mental illness

The psychiatric reform made it possible to treat people with mental disorders in community health services, increasing the conditions for women suffering from mental illness to start families and raise their children. The aim of this book was to identify associations between the parenting practices of mothers with mental disorders, social support and socio-economic conditions and to verify possible differences between the parenting practices of mothers with mental disorders and healthy mothers. The results show, among other things, greater dissatisfaction with the social support received by families whose mothers have a mental disorder, and that in these families, fathers are less responsive than fathers in the comparison group. The study also found that mothers in the comparison group are more demanding and responsive than mothers in the study group; that mothers in both groups are more responsive and more demanding with younger children and that family economic situation also influences maternal care. It can be concluded that mental illness influences mothers’ care actions.