Editorial Introduction

Every woman’s pregnancy and the transition to motherhood is one of the predictable transitions, and it requires resources of adaptability from her in order to cope with the new role. We are viewing the woman’s first or repeated transitions into motherhood by describing a complex phenomenon, where in addition to the woman’s transition; also other people are involved at the same time––fore, mostly the transition of the child and of the child’s father.

The meaning of motherhood reaches far beyond the mother herself and her lifetime. The meaning of motherhood is created simultaneously by the past, present, and future, and is affected by close relatives and the society at large. In each culture, the child is the one who brings with him/herself the possibility of motherhood, therefore, the pregnancy, the birth and the postnatal period are simultaneously connected to the understanding of motherhood on a biological, psychological, and cultural level. Biological motherhood means a unique physical closeness during the pregnancy with the unborn child, which in turn is connected to the creation of the psychological motherhood. This raises a number of basic questions: