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The present work originated in an experience with the Neonatal Pathology Division of the Hospital of Treviglio-Caravaggio (Bergamo), where I have now been working for 18 years as an Infant Neuropsychiatric Consultant on the basis of an agreement between the Local Health Unit No. 32 and the University of Milan.
The request for the intervention of an infant neuropsychiatrist, which was initially aimed at the early detection of cerebral palsy, was made in December 1976; but already in 1977, as a consequence of follow-up checks after discharge, the case analysis of young patients hospitalized during 1977 (Negri, 1980) showed a significant incidence of features, phobias, and other fears recognizable as typical warning symptoms of a psychopathological nature (Table 1).
The phobias of being undressed and of “having one's feet, hands, or head touched, and the ‘little hat’ phobias”, are, I believe, particularly related to emotional experiences derived from therapies involving drips into the scalp and frequent heel-pricks for the taking of blood, and in general to the traumas