Eight cases are presented in some detail in which unconscious pregnancy fantasies are expressed by psychophysiologic symptoms. The authors conclude that these somatically expressed pregnancy fantasies occur in response to a threat to dependency gratifications and that the pregnancy fantasy serves to compensate for the loss, and deal with the consequent hostility of frustration. All eight patients had a primitive character structure, some became psychotic, and all demonstrated marked oral regression. The authors interpret the pregnancy fantasy as a regressive bid for a return to a primitive ego state 'in which both the wish to have mother inside and the wish to be inside mother is fulfilled—a magical state of mutual incorporation'. Faulty early relations of mother and child are to blame.