Adolescent mothers' prenatal fantasies and working models of their infants

Parents' perceptions of their children have long fascinated clinicians. During early infancy, parental perceptions are particularly interesting, largely because of the ambiguity of infant behavior and the possibility that there might be meaningful biases in parental interpretations of their infants' behaviors. In order to explore the early development of parental perceptions, the study described in this paper compared the prenatal and postnatal perceptions of adolescent mothers about specific characteristics and behaviors of their infants. Mothers' internal mental representations or "working models" of their infants are a fruitful area for further research.