ROLE OF MATERNOLOGY IN FUNCTIONAL GASTROINTESTINAL DISORDERS IN INFANT

Abstract

The functional digestive pathology of the child in the first year of life is frequently encountered in the medical practice and is difficult to manage, diagnose and treat. The current general medical approach does not treat mother and child in the first year after birth as a biological unit, thus leaving out the perspective of the association of functional gastrointestinal disorders (FGID) with an impairment of maternal-child emotional relationship, resulting in uncertain therapeutic results. This perspective of the problem has been approached by maternology, a newer branch of medical sciences, which has been born on the assumption that most of the handicaps stem from a relational difficulty between the mother and her infant. Maternology integrates the child’s suffering from the perspective of the emotional relationship of the parent-child couple, emphasizing that the mother and the child is a biological unit that needs to be diagnosed and treated together, thus giving a new view in addressing the baby’s functional sufferings.

Keywords

• functional gastrointestinal disorders in infant
• maternology
• mother-child emotional relationship