A worrying discontinuity: The effects of maternal visual impairment on initial mother-baby interactions

In the framework of the PILE Project carried out at The Necker Hospital for Sick Children and in conjunction with the SAPPH of the Institute of Childcare of Paris, we did a study between September 2004 and June 2011 dealing with mother-child bonds in the context of a maternal visual handicap. A prospective and a longitudinal follow-up of 12 dyads of mothers with visual deficiency and their babies was done from the age of three months to 4 years. Among the tools used for this research, there was an analysis of early interactions carried out at 3, 6, 9, and 15 months with the CIB (Ruth Feldman, 1997) to evaluate, among other things, maternal sensitivity as well as the quality of mother-baby interactions. The results show that the quality of the mothers’ sensitivity is not as good as that of mothers in a control group, particularly because some of the baby’s signals are not detected or because these mothers are slower to respond when they perceive them. Nonetheless, we can emphasize that these visually deficient mothers demonstrate a greater use of affectionate touching and that their children take more initiatives to establish communication. In this context of maternal visual handicaps, the babies are confronted with different interactive styles, mostly marked by a difference in rhythm: that of their mother with a visual deficiency and that of other people suffering no such handicap, something which might cause confusion in the access to intersubjectivity of these children. The results of our study also show the need to accompany and to support these mothers in the creation of their bonds to their children.