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‘The history of man for the nine months preceding his birth would probably be far more interesting and contain events of greater moment than all the three score years and ten that follow it.’
Thus wrote the oft-quoted Samuel Taylor Coleridge in 1802. That same fascination for the prenatal period has captured the imagination and interest of many and yet it is only within the last fifteen years or so that prenatal psychology and medicine has become a focal interest, in England at least. Prematurity and the special care setting has provided us with an opportunity to observe ‘the inside baby’ — outside.
Anne McFadyen's book on Special Care Babies and their Developing Relationships is an important and timely contribution and will, no doubt, become essential reading for all those who enter the fascinating world of the neonatal intensive care unit — a world in which babies are at the centre of a highly complex and multi-layered system of relationships comprising the family and the professionals who provide the care, located within the institutional hospital setting, itself in turn affected by the political climate of the day. This emphasis on the multi-layered complexity of the internal/external recurs throughout the book.
The book's structure and presentation in clearly defined sections is designed to allow the reader to engage with the material in his own way, either via clinical interest or from the theoretical and philosophical perspective.
This format is useful to both parents and professionals who struggle to survive the stressful experience and move beyond survival to find meaning in a setting in which constant exposure to extreme vulnerability, disability and death forms part of daily reality. There can be no doubt that the birth of a fragile infant, catapulted prematurely into the