Research Article
Susto: Etiology of Mental Disorders in Mothers and Children in Mexico
| Miriam Castaldo* | |
| National Institute for Health, Migration and Poverty (NIHMP), Via di San Gallicano, Rome, Italy | |
| Corresponding Author : | Miriam Castaldo National Institute for Health Migration and Poverty (NIHMP) Via di San Gallicano, Rome, Italy Tel: +39 0658558201-2 Email: miriam.castaldo@gmail.com |
| Received: October 13, 2015 Accepted: November 12, 2015 Published: November 19, 2015 | |
| Citation: Castaldo M (2015) Susto: Etiology of Mental Disorders in Mothers and Children in Mexico. J Preg Child Health 2:206. doi:10.4172/2376-127X.1000206 | |
| Copyright: © 2015 Castaldo M. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. | |
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Abstract
This article presents the results of an investigation into the construction and representation of mental disorders that was carried out in the Nahua community of Santa María de la Encarnación Xoyatla and in the Mestizo community of San Cristóbal Tepeojuma, both located in the southwest of the State of Puebla, in Mexico. In such areas, mental disorders are embodied as enfermedades de la cabeza (mental illnesses) and their psychophysical manifestations are locura (madness) and ataques (attacks). Both illnesses are produced by having suffered a susto or an espanto (fright), which in the contexts we consider are synonymous, and can become incurable and even fatal if they develop in children who have been breastfed by women who have suffered a susto.
