[Pregnancy and breast-feeding: developmental stages of mother-child bonding]

Several authors, confronting the mother-child relationship during pregnancy and breast-feeding, talk about an uterine and extra-uterine symbiosis. In this way, one bypasses the fact that the so called unions end with the processes of separation constituted by the birthing/birth (by the termination, that is to say, of the first maternal nurturing (that of placenta) as well as by the termination of the second maternal nurturing (that of the individual breast-feedings). The careful observation of these unions demonstrates that they coexist and they imply equilibrium through the processes of separation that not only allow a partial autonomy of the developments of mother and child, but also make room for the detachments represented by the birthing/birth and by the end of the individual breast feedings. The author is trying to illustrate some physiological and pathological equilibrium between these tendencies towards reciprocal dependence and reciprocal mother-child autonomy.