The aim of the study is to show the progress of knowledge regarding the developmental and educational potential of a child in the prenatal period. The educational potential in this study is defined as human development and educational resources. The author analyzes the ways of defining a child and childhood, signals the progress of social sciences that took place at the end of the 19th and in the 20th centuries, which was of great importance for the transformation of the concept of a child and childhood with its pre-birth period. The author also reviews the assumptions of contemporary psychology and prenatal pedagogy, and encourages a discourse on human potential from the moment of conception.