The mother’s body, the role of pleasure in the mother–infant relationship, and the traumatic risk

Abstract

In this paper, I wish to talk about the process of becoming a mother, with particular attention to the role of the mother's bodily experience, during pregnancy and childbirth, in developing maternal competencies. Studies on neurophysiological mother–infant interaction allow us to focus on a series of specific bodily based processes that support their relationship in order to guarantee the establishment of a secure attachment. The experience of pregnancy and childbirth, through the body, reactivates the somatic memories of the woman, with the possibility of a re-enactment of traumatic experiences on the one hand, but also with the possibility of a transformation and an integration of these experiences through physiological, biological, psychological processes characteristic of motherhood. Neurophysiological processes related to bodily pleasure can make the difference. The literature at hand describes a post-traumatic stress disorder in women due to the conditions of giving birth, with particular attention to women with a history of sexual abuse during childhood. We should ask ourselves exactly how psychoanalysis considers this new emergent issue and how it should reconsider the role of the mother's body.