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Piontelli presents the reader with the intriguing and controversial thesis “that there is a remarkable consistency in behaviour before and after birth and that many small children show signs after birth of being influenced by experiences they had before birth” (p. 23). This quotation from Freud prefaces her research: “There is much more continuity between intra-uterine life and earliest infancy than the impressive caesura of the act of birth would have us believe.”1 The young mother of one of the pairs of twins studied observes what many parents of infants tell us: “Babies are all different … you can see it from the start….” She then touches on the heart of Piontelli's research: “I don't see why fetuses shouldn't be different too …” (p. 128).
Using the recent technology of ultrasonographic scans, Piontelli observed the fetal behaviors of three singleton and four twin pregnancies. After delivery, these infants were observed postnatally at intervals into their fourth year. Piontelli includes six psychoanalytic treatment summaries of young children (the oldest, Alexander, was referred at three years and fourth months) to demonstrate links between their fetal behavior and current pathologies. One of these cases, Giulia, was observed pre- and postnatally as well as during delivery.