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If the early 20th century was the era of Freudian approaches to mother–child interactions and early childhood dynamics, is the early 21st century becoming the age of biologically driven prenatal and infant psychiatry? In the past several decades, approximately 50 years after the advent of biological adult psychiatry, child psychiatry has taken center stage as researchers study fetal and early development as etiopathogenetic pathways for disorders in adults.
Some studies have focused on gestational factors that heighten risk for later schizophrenia, such as maternal upper urinary tract infections, especially in patients with family histories of schizophrenia (Am J Psychiatry 2009; 166:1025). Because these infections are easily diagnosed, this…