Developing Culturally Sound Infant Mental Health Practice for the South African Context

It is well documented that variations exist in parenting practices, child development trajectories and ideal societal norms from context to context, and yet, much of infant mental health theory is derived from the Western world, which represents less than 10% of the world’s children. Thus, effective and evidence-informed infant mental health practice in South Africa necessitates local research into the constructs pertaining to infant mental health. This chapter will outline various South African research projects which investigated infant mental health constructs in South Africa. It will go on to outline several locally developed and locally adapted infant mental health interventions, highlighting the need to integrate Indigenous knowledge and contextualize interventions for their setting.