The Maternal Looking Guide

A photo of an infant looking up at their mother

The Maternal Looking Guide (MLG) is a practical clinical tool designed for use in the perinatal environment by infant mental health workers and perinatal professionals.

Using observable aspects of the way a mother looks at her infant, it enables an early assessment to be made of the quality of the mother-infant relationship. In this way, it assists in identifying mother-infant dyads who would benefit from additional support.

The MLG has been evaluated in three international sites and has demonstrated reliability.

The development of the MLG has been described in this article in the Journal of Reproductive and Infant Psychology:

Patricia O’Rourke, Jon Jureidini & David Ben-Tovim (2021) The Maternal Looking Guide: a perinatal clinical tool to support the emerging mother-infant relationship’, DOI: 10.1080/02646838.2021.1991566