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How to navigate nurseries, micro-nurseries, and supplementary services to find the right place for your child. A practical guide for informed parents.

Thanks to modern contraceptive methods, it can seem possible to decide when to have a child. But biology reminds us that pregnancy often escapes our control.

The father figure has changed, but the psychological challenges experienced by expectant fathers during pregnancy often remain in the shadows. An analysis of the emotional and unconscious experiences of fatherhood.

Every change requires a period of adaptation that can generate stress and discomfort. How reflexology can help mind and body regain balance during pregnancy and postpartum.

The first interview with the nursery educators is a moment of listening and mutual trust: what to share, what questions to ask, and why it's the start of an educational journey shared with your family.

What miscarriage is from a medical standpoint, what happens to the body, and why — beyond the physical aspects — it's important to allow yourself time to grieve the interrupted pregnancy.

What it means to be a «good enough mother» from a psychological standpoint: the role of mutual recognition between mother and child, and how the quality of maternal presence shapes the child's growth.

During pregnancy the body isn't the only protagonist: the psyche goes through a profound inner upheaval. What the unconscious is, and why the expectant mother's psychological state has a direct impact on the child's wellbeing.

Breastfeeding is beneficial, but it isn't the only way to be a «present mother»: how much the mother's psychological serenity matters in her relationship with her baby, even when formula feeding is chosen instead.

What the baby blues is, the physiological period of mood swings that affects most new mothers in the first days after giving birth, and how to recognize it without overlooking it.

How to recognize postpartum depression, tell it apart from the baby blues by how persistent and delayed its symptoms are, and why addressing it in psychotherapy benefits both mother and baby.

From courtship to embryonic diapause, from birth in the den to independence at a year and a half: how a mother bear experiences motherhood, step by step.

Twenty-one months of gestation, the longest of any mammal, and a matriarchal herd that cares for every calf as its own: the bond between mother and calf in the world of elephants.

A documentary masterpiece from the 1600s: Jusepe de Ribera portrays Magdalena Ventura, the "bearded lady", breastfeeding her newborn son.

Edvard Munch was five years old when he lost his mother. In this famous painting he identifies with the child devastated by grief: a look at the painting and the artist's life.

In the Lucca Madonna, Jan van Eyck merges the majestic throne of the queen of heaven with the intimacy of a mother breastfeeding: a Flemish masterpiece from the 15th century.

No halos, no royal splendor: Raphael portrays a working-class mother holding her child, perhaps inspired by a real-life scene he glimpsed in the street.

Eighty different games crowd a Flemish town square in this 1560 masterpiece — but the children's faces have adult features. A painting that is also a metaphor, almost a dream.

Two paintings, both titled Hope, offer two completely opposite visions of pregnancy: one unsettling and threatening, the other tender and meditative. A comparison of Klimt's two works.

In 1905, in the midst of his Rose Period, Picasso painted a mother and child fused within a single shawl: a classical, universal, eternal image of motherhood.

Frida Kahlo paints herself as an infant, with an adult's face, nursed by an Indigenous wet nurse whose face is hidden by a funerary mask: a painting full of contradictions about her relationship with motherhood and the land.

Sitting on an empty bed, with a doll in place of the child she will never have, Frida Kahlo shows no despair: she shows defiance.

Lying on the parched earth, green branches grow from Frida's open side and take root in the soil: an image of self-fertilization and rediscovered peace, painted at 36.

Behind Russia's most famous souvenir lies a surprisingly recent history and a deep symbolism tied to motherhood: from its 19th-century origins to the meaning of its seven bodies.

From a sidelined old man leaning on a flowering staff to a young, present father: how the image of Saint Joseph changed over the centuries, culminating in the tenderness of Murillo's Holy Family with a Little Bird.

How Reiki can accompany a woman from the search for conception all the way to childbirth, involving the father too in an active role of support.

When having too much of it on your hands becomes destabilizing. In reality it is always a resource: a reflection born from the months of the pandemic on time spent with children.

Forced rest in pregnancy is not a hitch to be endured, but precious time: how to let yourself be guided by nature's biological cycles instead of living it with frustration.

Beyond its well-known soothing properties, amber has always played a quiet role as an «energetic sponge»: how small objects made of this fossil resin can clear the energy of a home or an office.

Why do so many newborns and small children wear an amber necklace? It is neither vanity nor superstition: the soothing properties of succinic acid and other still-relevant «grandmother's remedies».

Every future parent carries their own family of origin with them, along with its unresolved conflicts. Why working on these roots before setting out on the path of parenthood matters so much.

If you want to grow a healthy plant, tend to its roots: a basic holistic principle for anyone preparing to become a parent, drawing on Reiki, Family Constellations, and Crystal Therapy.

From Yoga in pregnancy to Reiki, from foot Reflexology to Family Constellations: an overview of the holistic disciplines that can accompany a woman on her parenting journey.

38 flowers, an age-old maceration process, and 25 years of hands-on experience: how Bach flower therapy really works, and why an expectant mother «vibrates for two».

From the therapist's sensitivity to the «Skin Areas» and «Lunar Lines»: two objective methods, based on mapping the skin and on Traditional Chinese Medicine, for an accurate diagnosis with Bach flowers.

The great postural strain that breastfeeding places on the neck and chest of a new mother's body, and how foot and ear reflexology can support it, including in cases of mastitis and cracked nipples.

After childbirth, a woman's body and mind are put to a demanding test: how reflexology techniques, foot, hand, ear, and facial, can help prevent problems and restore balance.

A short guided video to give yourself a few minutes of relaxation, in the midst of a phase, motherhood, in which it is easy to forget to take care of yourself.

The second guided video in the series, to give yourself a few minutes of relaxation and wellbeing.

From the mother-child dyad to the triad with the father's entry: the 4 stages, tied to specific ages, through which the child builds independence thanks to the relationship with dad.

Hands-on experience, limits and rules, responsibility, availability, involvement: the traits that make for a balanced, effective father figure, and why play is the main tool for building it.

The difference between play and toys, and the first two types of play, tonic-emotional and sensorimotor, with the child neuropsychomotor therapist's advice on what to offer in the first months of life.

Sensorimotor, proto-symbolic, and symbolic play: how they develop from 6 to 36 months, with the child neuropsychomotor therapist's practical advice on materials and activities to offer at each stage.

Standing upright, «coastal navigation», and learning to fall: the milestones that, between 9 and 18 months, prepare the child for the first great act of independence, walking.

From crawling on all fours to independent walking: how the walking pattern changes, and what to do (and avoid) at home to support this stage, no baby walkers, no rushing.

Sitting posture, radial-palmar grasp, and pointing: what happens in the child's motor development between 6 and 9 months, and why this is one of the most significant quarters of growth.

Crawling on the belly, pivoting, bottom-shuffling, and crawling on all fours: the different forms of horizontal movement, and why playpens, baby walkers, and jumpers should be avoided at this stage of development.

From the third month onward, involuntary movements give way to increasingly intentional muscle control: what happens in the child's body, and what to do (or avoid) to support them.

From the fourth to the sixth month: discovering hands and feet, rolling, crawling on the belly, and reaching the sitting position, with practical advice on what to offer and what to avoid.

From the automatic walking reflex to the Moro reflex, from grasping to sucking: how to recognize the main newborn reflexes, and why observing them helps prevent developmental struggles later on.

Having a child is an irrevocable choice that changes your life: why it's important for it to be a decision carefully weighed by the couple, free from outside pressure.

Feelings of aggression toward the baby exist in almost every mother and shouldn't be denied: recognizing them is the first step toward managing them without causing harm.

The story of a mother who, thanks to a course of psychotherapy, learned to enjoy her second experience of motherhood after having lived the first as a burden.

Why physical and nonverbal interaction with your baby is essential for their emotional and cognitive development, right from the first weeks of life.

Hunger, discomfort, or pain: every baby goes through moments of distress. How to communicate with them through nonverbal language to help them settle.

What Mary Ainsworth's Strange Situation is, and the four attachment styles (secure, insecure-avoidant, insecure-ambivalent, insecure-disorganized) a child can develop toward their mother.

From Bowlby's studies to Harlow's famous experiments on Rhesus monkeys: why the attachment relationship between child and parent is so decisive for future development.

Why so many children between four and twelve months become attached to a stuffed toy or a piece of cloth: what the «transitional objects» described by Winnicott are, and what purpose they serve.

From the second to the sixth month of life, interaction with your baby transforms: from eye contact to mirroring games, all the way to the first shared play.

Feeding your baby «on demand» is helpful in the first weeks, but learning to delay gratification helps the child manage frustration: why you shouldn't anticipate their every desire.

A historical journey through the psychological methods used in the twentieth century to ease labor pain: from hypnosis to the Dick Read method, through to the Soviet psychoprophylactic method.

The story of the Lamaze method, the famous «painless childbirth» approach born in France in the 1950s and later spread to Italy thanks to Malcovati and Miraglia.

Why coming home with the baby throws so many new mothers into crisis: a psychological hypothesis linking maternal insecurity to the unconscious memory of one's own infantile «Hilflosigkeit», as described by Freud.

Why some women defend natural childbirth «at any cost» while others ask to schedule a cesarean from the very start of pregnancy: two opposite attitudes that conceal the same fear of separation.

Conception despite an IUD, pregnancies that survive attempted abortion, lost twins: how these circumstances can leave traces in a child's psyche, and why the parent's presence can make a difference.

Why motherhood, though a physiological event, can become a source of stress: how unconscious traumas from the past shape the way pregnancy is experienced.

The breast alone isn't enough: why the quality of breastfeeding depends above all on the emotional, not just physical, presence of whoever is feeding the baby.

After the loss of a child, conceiving another right away doesn't help work through the grief: the psychological risks of a «conceptional identity» built to fill a void.

Why so many people tell pregnant women the most distressing details of difficult births: behind this «sadism» often lies an unresolved childhood jealousy.

Heredity, ontogenesis, and the circumstances of conception: how the embryo's «conceptional identity» comes about, according to perinatal psychiatrist B. Bayle, and why it matters for the child's future development.

Almost all new mothers experience, at least once, intrusive thoughts of harming their baby: when this is normal and when it points to postpartum obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Why pregnancy, with its greater "psychic transparency", is a time when psychotherapy can make a difference, especially for women with a history of psychological difficulties or undergoing treatment with psychiatric medication.

From the unmarried mother who consciously chooses to have a child alone to the mother who finds herself alone due to life's circumstances: what it means, from a psychological standpoint, to raise a child without a partner.

From Winnicott's "primary maternal preoccupation" to the fusional bond of the first months: how the quality of the mother's presence helps the baby build his own individuality.

Why the rush to return to productivity after giving birth harms both mothers and babies: the postpartum period is the minimum time needed to "become skilled" in one's role, not a period to shorten.

Why even the most attentive parents can, without meaning to, expose their child to unwitting suffering: the case of co-sleeping and the "primal scene" described by psychoanalysis.

What happens psychically when two twins share the same womb? A psychoanalytic hypothesis on aggression, survival, and bonding in intrauterine life.

In the expulsive phase, anxieties tied to the anal stage of childhood resurface, and, in the case of an episiotomy, ancient unconscious fantasies of castration: a psychological look at the final phase of labor.

One of the mother's most important tasks is to help the child become an independent person: why this process of separation, which begins already in pregnancy, is never a given.

Why terror of childbirth, unlike ordinary apprehension, is almost always the symptom of a deep-seated conflict rooted in intrauterine life and early childhood.

A pre-language from birth: what a newborn's cry really communicates, and why learning to decode it is the first step toward reassuring him.

Dogs, cats, elephants, pandas: why animals appear so often in dreams during pregnancy, and what they represent in the psyche of the mother-to-be.

A baby's sleep problems are not only about him: they are often related to the unconscious anxieties of the person caring for him. Why a mother's inner work on herself can help her baby sleep better.

Alongside overt violence, there are subtler forms of trauma inflicted by parents who love their children: how ignorance about a newborn's real needs can hurt him without anyone meaning to.

Dreams of violence, death, or cataclysms during an otherwise calm pregnancy: why these nightmares actually serve a protective function and should not be taken as bad omens.

Not all "no"s are the same: why knowing how to use them at the right moment is an ally of growth, not an obstacle, according to Asha Phillips's celebrated insight.

Why is it so hard to say no to our children? Three common obstacles, and why saying "yes" out of tiredness or inattention is not really an act of love.

What is the "dead mother" described by psychoanalyst André Green: when the mother is physically present but psychologically distant, and how this affects the child's emotional development.

From the fear of not recognizing the start of labor to that of breaking your water in public: how to recognize the prodromal phase of childbirth and manage its most common anxieties.

Apples that replace the ultrasound, pears that turn into babies: why the theme of food is so present in pregnant women's dreams, and what it reveals about the infantile regression of pregnancy.

When a child falls ill with unusual frequency, the real «patient» may be the relationship with the mother: what is Pediatric Maternal Avoidance Syndrome (SPEM)?

How a depressed mother's emotional distance is perceived by her baby, and through which signals, crying, growth difficulties, low muscle tone, the child expresses their distress.

Why the birth of a second child is always a source of jealousy for the firstborn, and why the closer siblings are in age, the more intense the distress can be.

Always tired, always overwhelmed, always in need of being comforted: why the «vulnerable mother» risks hindering, without meaning to, her child's separation and autonomy.

A recurring nightmare about the baby's health, recounted during a psychotherapy session, reveals childhood feelings of guilt that were never fully worked through: nightmares in pregnancy are never omens.

Why the obsessive anxiety about a baby's health, often out of proportion to the objective facts, can conceal old feelings of childhood jealousy that were never fully worked through.

From «falsely present» pregnant women to those who experience pregnancy as an illness: how the degree of unconscious ambivalence toward the baby also shapes the choice of how to give birth.

Why we dream more during pregnancy, and what it really means to interpret a dream: the difference between manifest content and latent content according to psychoanalysis.

Where does the sudden, irresistible desire for a particular food during pregnancy come from? A psychoanalytic hypothesis links pregnancy cravings to unconscious ambivalence toward the baby.

From the stethoscope to X-rays to ultrasound: how the ultrasound scan has changed the relationship between parents and their unborn child, and why there is no good way to deliver a difficult diagnosis.

Quantitative deficits, qualitative deficits, and interactive discontinuity: Mary Ainsworth's classification of the various ways a mother can be present alongside her child.

Why pregnancy seems to bring women back to a fetal state: the unusual relationship with water and the heightened sense of smell that many pregnant women describe experiencing.

Elective abortion, even when it is a carefully considered choice, can leave behind an unrecognized distress that resurfaces even after time has passed: why working through it psychologically benefits everyone.

Why, especially after a previous miscarriage or abortion or a long wait to conceive, the beginning of pregnancy can be lived with a constant fear of losing the baby.

Why, around six months, breastfeeding «on demand» is no longer enough: how to guide a baby through the transition from the fusional phase to a gradual, healthy separation from mom.

Why the excessive concern of family and friends toward a pregnant woman, however much it is driven by affection, often conceals ambivalent feelings that are never fully recognized.

Why distress linked to a previous miscarriage or abortion, if not worked through, tends to resurface with particular intensity during the postpartum period of a later pregnancy.

From physiological baby blues to the rare but serious postpartum psychosis: how to recognize the signs of a disorder that requires prompt intervention.

Why dragging a newborn everywhere, at the same frantic pace as the parents, is not always the best choice: how to plan a holiday «to the baby's scale» without giving up your own need for rest.

How the relationship, love and hate, experienced with one's own mother during childhood resurfaces during pregnancy and colors the unconscious ambivalence toward one's own child.

What Winnicott called «primary maternal preoccupation», and why this heightened sensitivity, however precious, must never replace all of a mother's other relationships.

For Lara, the most common symptom of pregnancy reawakens a childhood memory tied to guilt: an example of how the physical symptoms of pregnancy can speak of the past.

From a medical and a psychoanalytic point of view: why pregnancy is so often accompanied by nausea and digestive trouble, and what infantile sexual theories have to do with it.

Like a graft to be tolerated: the biological rejection response with which the maternal body initially receives the embryo, told through the image of a storm.

What «neoteny» is, and why the newborn, immature compared to other mammals, has an absolute need for a maternal presence able to calibrate closeness and small frustrations.

How intimacy between partners changes during pregnancy: the account of a woman who feels closer to her husband, yet, at the same time, alone in an experience she feels only she can truly live.

Who am I now that I've stopped being the pregnant woman of the last nine months? The difficult work of rediscovering one's own identity in the first days after a baby's birth.

Why pregnancy can swing between unusual indifference and overwhelming emotion: what causes these sudden mood shifts and why they are entirely physiological.

A first birth experienced as exhausting and highly medicalized, a second faced with far more serenity: how working on oneself can profoundly change the way labor is experienced.

From old folk beliefs to theories about vaginal acidity: why the desire for a boy or a girl is rooted in an unconscious relationship with one's own parents.

What happens when the real baby doesn't match the one imagined over nine months of pregnancy: why the first encounter with a newborn isn't always love at first sight.

Attachment to one's child isn't always immediate: why some mothers feel overwhelmed with joy in the delivery room, while others need more time to recognize their own baby.

What truly distinguishes sterility from infertility, and why the «pre-primary sterility» of women who have never tried to become mothers often has psychological roots reaching back to childhood.

Breast or bottle: psychologically speaking, it isn't the method that makes the difference, but the state of mind in which a mother feeds her baby. Why women who don't feel up to breastfeeding shouldn't be made to feel guilty.

From the desire to survive one's own death to the wish to relive one's own childhood: the deep, often unconscious motivations that drive a woman to become a mother.

Why an obsessive desire for a child can, paradoxically, delay conception: Lara's testimony, and the role of the gynecologist as a figure onto whom childhood fears are projected.

The desire for a child begins long before conception, as far back as childhood games with dolls: the story of Lara, opening the account of her pregnancy and her inner world.

The pelvic floor is the muscular component of the perineum, essential to every woman's health: how to recognize the signs of weakness and take care of it after childbirth.

The postpartum period doesn't always go as expected: from unforeseen feelings toward the newborn to changes in the body, to a hospital stay longer than planned. How to get through the unexpected after childbirth.

An interview with Cristina, a mother for just a few weeks, who wrote down her thoughts and feelings throughout nine months of pregnancy in a diary: from the pregnancy test to labor, all the way to Laura's birth.

Why nutrition in the first 1,000 days of life, from conception to age two, is crucial for a child's future health: breastfeeding, weaning and practical advice for a balanced diet.

How epigenetic modifications regulate fetal development throughout pregnancy, from ovulation to the preparation of the mother's body for breastfeeding.

How toxoplasmosis is transmitted, why testing during pregnancy is important, and what simple precautions are enough to live serenely with your cat during pregnancy.

How to decide, together with your gynecologist and psychiatrist, whether to continue or stop psychiatric medication during pregnancy, weighing the risks and benefits for mother and baby with full awareness.

What happens in the final stage of labor, the delivery of the placenta, and how the choice between discarding, donating, or storing the newborn's umbilical cord works.

Which hormones, oxytocin, prolactin, and testosterone, regulate paternal behavior toward the newborn, and how they change in men who become fathers.

What sets type 1, type 2, and gestational diabetes apart, why blood sugar control during pregnancy is essential, and how to manage gestational diabetes.

How the sense of smell develops as early as life in the womb, and how the odors perceived by the fetus in the amniotic fluid can influence the child's future food choices.

Why the risk of swollen legs and venous insufficiency increases during pregnancy, and which measures, from graduated compression stockings to lifestyle habits, help prevent it.

The main factors behind female infertility, from maternal age to hormonal and anatomical conditions, explained by a specialist in obstetrics and gynecology.

What social freezing is, the precautionary cryopreservation of oocytes: how it works, when it's recommended, and what the success rates are.

An overview of the prenatal diagnostic tests available during pregnancy, from nuchal translucency to fetal DNA testing, explained by a gynecologist.

When and why a planned or emergency cesarean is performed, the type of anesthesia offered, and some homeopathic remedies to support post-operative recovery.

The story of Madame du Coudray and the eighteenth-century obstetric mannequin that revolutionized midwifery training in France, helping to lower infant mortality.

The story of Ignaz Semmelweis, the Hungarian doctor who discovered the link between hand hygiene and puerperal fever, and who paid for his groundbreaking insight with exclusion and ridicule.

Causes, types, and risks of twin pregnancy, from the distinction between monozygotic and dizygotic twins to the most common complications of this type of pregnancy.

Why preparing the pelvic muscles during pregnancy matters as much as information about labor and breastfeeding: the first part of the journey to understanding the perineum.

The second part of the journey to prepare the perineum for childbirth: the muscle work program, the benefits of preparation, and exercises to try in the final months of pregnancy.

Crying is a newborn's only language: how to tell apart the different types of cries (hunger, discomfort, pain, boredom, tiredness) and how to respond to their needs without fear of spoiling them.

The role of prolactin and oxytocin in regulating breastfeeding, and why the suppression of ovulation induced by suckling is not a reliable contraceptive method.

What lactational amenorrhea (LAM) is, the rules for good contraceptive effectiveness in the first six months, and how it compares with the failure rates of condoms, the progestin-only pill and the hormonal IUD.

The hormonal contraceptive options compatible with breastfeeding (the progestin-only pill, the subcutaneous implant and the progesterone IUD) and their effects on milk production and the newborn's health.

How to recognize and manage two of the most common difficulties in the early stages of breastfeeding: breast engorgement and the different nipple shapes.

How to recognize and address cracked nipples and blocked ducts/mastitis: causes, practical management and supportive homeopathic remedies.

Candida, nipple vasospasm and tongue-tie: how to recognize them, manage them and when to see a doctor or midwife.

The anatomy and physiology of breastfeeding, how the composition of breast milk changes in the first days and following weeks, the value of skin-to-skin contact, and the main benefits of breastfeeding.

How to find a comfortable position during a feed, what breastfeeding on demand means, what to do if you feel you don't have enough milk, and how to eat properly while breastfeeding.

From documented historical and medical cases to folk legends such as that of Saint Mamas: a journey between science and myth around the idea of male breastfeeding.

Play is not a minor pastime but real developmental work for the child: how parents can prepare, interact, observe and contain in order to support their child's growth.

What really happens in a session of analytic psychotherapy, and why more and more women, whether pregnant or before starting a pregnancy, choose a psychotherapeutic path for the wellbeing of their future child.

A poetic reflection, taken from “The Prophet of the Wind” by Stefano Biavaschi, on the meaning of being a parent and the art of letting children grow up free.

A fairy tale designed to guide children through a sequence of yoga poses, featuring a vain tortoise, a white lion, and a dark cloud that steals wishes.

An interview with Simona Rossi, a nursery school teacher and environmental volunteer, on the benefits of contact with nature for children's physical, emotional and cognitive growth.

The second part of the interview on the relationship between children and nature, with practical tips for parents and teachers on how to raise young children's awareness of respect for the environment.

A reflection on how many extracurricular activities it is right to offer young children, and on the irreplaceable value of free play for their development.

An Easter fairy tale about seven little hares, in search of the one able to carry his own egg, without getting distracted along the way, all the way to the children's garden.

What happens to a woman's oral health during pregnancy, and the Ministry of Health's guidance for preventing problems with teeth and gums over the nine months.

The second part on oral health during pregnancy: which dental treatments can safely be undergone, which medications can be used, and how to protect the child's first teeth.