ArticleJournal of bioethical inquiry2026
An Ethical Analysis of Medicalization and Infant Mental Healthcare.
Article in Journal of bioethical inquiry, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Abstract
The field of infant mental health has been met with some scepticism by those who question the role of the mental health professions in this space. In this paper I will consider a possible ethical objection to the extension of medical jurisdiction over infancy and parenting, informed by the critical tradition of medicalization studies. In part I of the paper, I will give particular attention to three potentially harmful consequences of medicalization on infants and their families-the expansion of medical social control, the individualization of human suffering, and the pathologization of human behaviour and variation. In part II, I will provide an ethical defence of infant mental health, addressing the objections raised by a medicalization-based critique. I will conclude in part III that medicalization is not always bad for infants and their families, and that, in the case of infant mental health, there is a mutually reinforcing relationship between medicalization and infant rights claims to the fundamental conditions for pursuing a good life.
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