[Management of the mother-infant couple at risk at a joint hospitalization unit]

The authors report a four year experience of conjoint mother and child hospitalization in a specialized unit in a child psychiatry department. The intervention on the disorders of the early relation between mother and child is a way of prevention of the psychic pathology of the child and eventually of the adult. The objective is an individual primary (or primo-secondary) prevention among other processes of preventive intervention. The initial project and the actual functioning are described. A retrospective observation suggests the interest of this type of unit in the early medico-psychosocial prevention, in the training of the staff in contact with the infant and in the clinical research in the field of the development of the very young and of his interactions with his mother.