ABSTRACT
This chapter contributes psychoanalysis and infant research in the area of the psychological transformations in the parents' mind that occur during pregnancy and in the post-natal period. It illustrates how the foetal image in the ultrasound can interweave with maternal and paternal representations, allowing parents to share conscious fantasies about the baby. The chapter presents an observational procedure based on the parental interaction with the image of foetus in the ultrasound which activate parental affiliative processes and intuitive parenting behaviours involved in the transition to parenthood. It also illustrates how advances in scientific knowledge and technology have encouraged a fertile dialogue between psychoanalysis and neuroscience, which affected especially the field of parenting, where the relation between mind and brain is particularly relevant. The chapter concludes the possibility to translate the neuroscientific advances in preventive programmes for high risk families, in order to promote infant wellbeing through the development of parental abilities.
