Video-feedback intervention with mothers with postnatal eating disorders and their infants

This chapter describes the VIPP treatment modified and extended to help mothers with eating disorders to interact with their infants at mealtimes in a more harmonious way. The trial itself resulted from the findings of a longitudinal observational study of mothers with eating disorders and their infants, the purpose of which was to examine the influence of maternal eating disorder psychopathology on mother-child interaction and child development, including children's feeding and growth. The mothers with the eating disorders and their infants manifested significantly more mealtime conflict than comparison dyads. Infants of mothers with eating disorders were rated as showing more negative emotional tone than the infants of the comparison mothers. It was found that infants of mothers with eating disorders weighed less than both the healthy controls and the infants of mothers with postnatal depression at 1 year of age, and there were no differences between the latter two groups.