ABSTRACT
The importance of parental attitudes and close contact between mother and child were topics discussed at the Eighth Congress of the American Association for Prenatal and Perinatal Psychology and Health held in San Francisco in December, 1997, which had as its theme "Birth, Love and Relationships". This chapter presents a concept of care that spans a lifetime, the whole lifecycle, from before conception onwards. It describes new ways to protect new lives. The chapter shows that how people are finding new ways of healing. The people are researching into the beginnings of life, but society is scarcely aware of the problems and their causes, or of the newfound possibilities of healing. The degree of bonding depends on the amount of attention given to the physical and emotional needs of a developing child at each stage of development—preconception, pregnancy, infancy, childhood, and adolescence.
