Educating & Advocating on Behalf of Texas Babies

The Texas Association for Infant Mental Health (TAIMH) is a non-profit affiliate of the World Association for Infant Mental Health. TAIMH has addressed infant mental health issues in Texas since 1980, and is dedicated to improving the quality of nurturing family relationships for infants, young children and their families.

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  • Father’s Age Linked to Risk of Autism and Schizophrenia

    Older men are more likely than young ones to father a child who develops autism or schizophrenia, because of random mutations that become more numerous with advancing paternal age, scientists reported on Wednesday, in the first study to quantify the effect as it builds each year. The age of mothers had no bearing on the risk for these disorders, the study found. Experts said
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  • How Babies and Toddlers Are Impacted by Exposure to Violence and How to Help Them

    For many adults, violence is a reality every day— in newspapers and television, schools, their communities, and, importantly, in many homes in the form of domestic violence. Young children may also experience violence at very early ages, sometimes even before they are born. Children may directly experience, witnesses or sense violence around them. It is easy to think that babies and toddlers are not
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  • Stresses of Poverty May Impair Learning Ability in Young Children

    The stresses of poverty — such as crowded conditions, financial worry, and lack of adequate child care — lead to impaired learning ability in children from impoverished backgrounds, according to a theory by a researcher funded by the National Institutes of Health. The theory is based on several years of studies matching stress hormone levels to behavioral and school readiness test results in young
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  • ‘Child Life Specialists’ Help Sick Kids Be Kids

    Yoselyn Gaitan, an eight-year-old with a shy smile, sits quietly in an exam room at Children’s National Medical Center in Washington D.C., wearing a tiny hospital gown. She looks a little uneasy as she waits to be brought back to the operating room for the final surgery on her cleft palate. Kelly Schraf spots her through the curtain, and tiptoes into her room. Schraf
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  • Increased Off Label Antipsychotic Drug Use Found Among Children

    A national study conducted by researchers at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) shows increased use of powerful antipsychotic drugs to treat publicly insured children over the last decade. The study, published September 10 in the journal Health Services Research, found a 62 percent increase in the number of Medicaid-enrolled children ages 3 to 18 taking antipsychotics, reaching a total of 354,000 children by
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  • ‘Success’ Means Balanced Relationships

    We are all helicopter parents. Or perhaps none of us are, because it’s always the other parent who hovers too much, never ourselves. But by the standards of our grandparents, we are all smothering our kids. We have fewer children on average, but we spend much more time and money on the ones we have. And we’re more likely than our grandparents to move
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  • Child’s psychological mistreatment may be subtle but harmful

    The child who is routinely yelled at, demeaned, ridiculed, ignored or terrorized by a parent may bear no outward signs of abuse. But abused he is, and the negative consequences for the child’s mental health as well as his future relationships and sense of self-worth are generally significant, says a new clinical report from the nation’s pediatricians. Psychological maltreatment of children by their parents
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  • Study: Mexican Moms More Nurturing than Those in Other Culture Groups

    According to a new study published Tuesday, Mexican immigrant mothers performed better on some measures of parenting than white mothers did. The study, conducted by a research team from the University of California, Berkeley, found that Mexican-origin mothers provide “warm and supportive home settings,” engage in fewer conflicts with spouses and exhibit evidence of stronger mental health than their white peers, despite higher poverty
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