The imagined baby during pregnancy: Theoretical an empirical aspects

Abstract

Based on the literature, the mother's construction of the imagined baby during pregnancy is discussed. Reports of pregnant women who were in the third trimester of pregnancy at the beginning of the study are presented. They were interviewed at the end of pregnancy and in the baby's third and eighth month. In these interviews the feelings and expectations concerning motherhood and the baby were explored. Based on psychoanalytic theory we analyzed the pregnant women's reports concerning the imagined baby in whom the mother invests her libido in order to constitute a subjective space to receive the baby of reality. From this study it is suggested that the imagined baby has an important impact on the future mother-infant interaction.