The well-baby clinic

The termwell-baby clinic (literally, a clinic that concerns itself with healthy infants) is probably better known in the United States, where such clinics exist, than in central Europe, where, on the whole, they do not. For the convenience of readers accustomed to it a formal definition is proffered: A well-baby clinic is a service center, with emphasis on physical and mental hygiene and prophylaxis, where mothers are seen with their young, healthy infants and helped to understand and manage the infant's unfolding maturation [1: p. 5] and development [1: p. 5]. This may serve to differentiate well-baby clinics, on the one hand, from clinics for sick children and child guidance clinics (usually resorted to after disturbances have emerged) and, on the other hand, from maternity and child welfare clinics, whose primary object is to safeguard physical health. (Maternity and child welfare clinics are also known as family health clinics, child health clinics, and infant welfare clinics. The extent to which they can cater to the psychological needs of mother and infant depends on their staff's training.)This paper forms part of a research project entitled Childhood Pathology: Impact on Later Mental Health, which is being conducted at the Hampstead Child-Therapy Course and Clinic, London. The project is financed by National Institute of Mental Health Grant MH-05683-11. Appreciation is expressed to Anna Freud, Elizabeth Model, Professor A. J. Solnit, and Dr. Josefine Stross for their valuable suggestions. The authors acknowledge with gratitude the freedom to quote from the Well-Baby Clinic's annual reports, compiled by the clinic's pediatrician, Dr. Josefine Stross, with the active help of her past assistants, Annemarie Curson, Manna Friedmann, and Joyce Robertson, and her present assistants, Irene Freud and E. Model.This paper was originally published in German, in volume 2 of theJahrbuch der Psychohygiene, Ed. Gerd Biermann, Ernst Reinhardt Verlag, München/Basel, 1974.