INFANT HEALTH Focus on
Infant Mental Health
Written by Aaron J Courtenay
who was 18 months old, stating she was worried about the state of her baby’s mental health. She had heard a report on the radio about the state of mental health in children and wondered if she could be doing more, as a parent, to help.
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If I am completely honest, I wasn’t entirely sure what to say. I don’t exactly see myself as extensively knowledgeable in the area of infant mental health. Is it the place of a pharmacist to be giving advice on children’s mental health?
Perhaps not, but surely a basic understanding of the concept would help. It struck me that this person had come into the pharmacy and asked a question to which not only did I not have an answer, I wasn’t entirely sure to whom would be the most appropriate referral.
Ultimately, I was able to put her in touch with her local health visitor who
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ecently a parent came into the pharmacy, asking about the mental health of her daughter,
was more than happy to help. In this case provision of information was lacking, and although eventually assisted by another healthcare worker, surely not good enough.
This suggested that perhaps infant mental health was something worth looking into. I have since then spent some time looking into recent trends in the analysis of children’s mental health and have tried to detail within this article some of the salient points required to have a basic understanding of infant mental health and the current thinking within the healthcare professions in Northern Ireland.
Mental health is one aspect of a person’s wellbeing that has been heavily targeted in the media, with significant funding directed towards public health promotion of mental wellbeing.
It is well known that depression and other mental health issues are a real cause of concern in the adult population, with one in five adults in
Northern Ireland showing signs of a mental illness. The impact of this is possibly most easily quantified by looking at the statistics surrounding work attendance.
Almost 50% of long-term absences from work in the UK are due to a mental health issue, which impacts drastically on work and finances, being able to achieve personal goals, and with the maintenance of stable healthy relationships [1]
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The UK Faculty of Public Health estimates the cost of mental illness for Northern Ireland at approximately £3 billion annually [2]
. Moving into the
adolescent population it is also known that teenage boys and girls are also at an increased risk of developing some form of mental health illness, in the coming years or later in life. Thinking younger again, do we know about the mental health status of children from as young as 0-3 years old?
Initially a community pharmacy may seem an odd place for a parent to
seek advice about infant mental health, but when you think about it, where else do parents go?
GP’s and health visitors are a prime source of information and are most often able to provide information on such topics.
However, with community pharmacy positioned as such a convenient point of contact for parents and guardians, surely as part of a pharmacist’s health promotion responsibilities, it is important that pharmacists are aware of the current health promotion strategies such as infant mental health, so that we can continue to provide the highest standard of care as part of the wider health and social care team.
So what has been learned about infant mental health? The Public Health Agency has outlined the need to consider infant mental health as a growing body of evidence from the clinical and social science fields show that the areas of the brain that control social and emotional development >
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