Prominent scientists from perinatal medicine, paediatrics, psychology and sociology will meet in Modena, Italy to explore birth as a complex psychological experience for mother, father and child. The proceedings of this interdisciplinary congress are here published in English to reach the broadest possible scientific audience. The goal is to create a dialogue between humanistic and medical perspectives with regard to conception, pregnancy and birth in an era of rapid biotechnological progress, taking different social and cultural contexts into account.

I. Blickstein: Modern reproductive medicine and the definition of parenthood: Praeter Naturam; E. Z. Tronick: Self and dyadic expansion of consciousness, meaning-making, open systems and the experience of pleasure; V. Iori: Birth: between medical and human science; V. Gallese: Intentional attunement: mirror neurons, inter-subjectivity, and autism; V. Francis: Becoming a parent: what parental writings teach us; G. Ferrara Mori: The interior experience of maternity; Adriana Lis et al.: Transition to fatherhood; B. Alder: The psychosomatic approach to contraceptive choice; J. Boivin: Counselling for infertility and its treatment; P. Fagandini et al.: The maternal and paternal experience between sterility and procreation; M. Mancia: The integrative functions of the brain and the origins of fetal psychism: some theoretical and clinical reflections; F. Ansermet: Death and birth; J. Bitzer: Prenatal counselling; F. Ferrari et al.: 'Care' in neonatal intensive therapy; R. Negri: Neurological development assessment of the newborn; V. Valoriani et al.: Subjective perspectives on the maternity experience - a qualitative analysis; G. Music: Reciprocity and psychic growth: the neglect of neglect; L. Miller: Psychic growth and reciprocity: psychoanalytical infant observation and socio-cultural factors; F. Monti: The complexity of birth: the Cesarean section; P. Durning: From foster care to parent training - the emergence of a socio-educative approach to 'parentality'; T. Ferradji: Migration, a risk for identity?; A.M. Di Vita: Scenarios of pregnancy and birth in immigrant families; B. Tillard: Family preparations for birth; G. Bestetti/ A.Regalia: Physiological pain, pathological pain, iatrogenic pain: the quality of pain and women's experience; F. Facchinetti et al.: Low risk delivery today