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The field of fetal research is a rapidly expanding one, constantly producing extraordinary findings on fetal sensory capacities and behavioural states. Even in the last few months axioms about the pregnant ‘unit’ have been challenged as evolutionary biologists declare that the genetic interests of fetus and expectant mother are not always identical and, indeed, at times are antithetical since only half the baby's genes come from the woman's ovum. It is now well established that far from being the passive creature once imagined, the fetus not only responds but initiates: changing position to increase comfort; affecting the interuterine environment; altering maternal biochemistry to accommodate his or her needs and, seemingly, even determining the duration of gestation by provoking labour.
Since its publication, From Fetus to Child has won considerable praise for its groundbreaking behavioural observation of fetuses. It has also provoked some criticism regarding its methodology and the validity of its conclusions regarding prenatal ‘memories’ and continuity between behaviour patterns observed in the womb and after birth. To my mind, the book's undoubted value for those in the therapeutic professions lies in its descriptive base. By presenting sections of unedited (albeit selected) material from pre- and postnatal observations and analytic sessions with six very young children, Dr Piontelli offers us opportunities to draw our own conclusions -disturbing our complacency while providing us with rich food for thought. Readers of this book will find it difficult to adhere to a stereotyped view of a blissful intrauterine paradise of fetal oblivion; or indeed, an unquestioned idea of perinatal ‘fusion’ and neonatal undifferentiated nonentity. As such this book serves as a catalyst to dispel fantasies or at least discredit persistent myths underpinning some psychoanalytic developmental