It has been possible to note certain clinical features of 62 cases of failure of intra-uterine growth at term which had no maternal or fetal somatic cause and 21 control cases that support the theoretical hypothesis with which we start: this hypothesis is that there are mothers who are ambivalent as far as their future child is concerned and this is shown by a reluctance to "let it grow". Delivery and then the future relationship between the mother and infant will account for these difficulties. As far as the clinical features are concerned the 75% incidence of primiparity which has already been remarked on by other authors is confirmed. Infertility is common in the previous history (more than 30% of all cases): the absence of any plan as far as the child is concerned during the pregnancy with a refusal to consider one, the low incidence of breast feeding (less than 30%), the absence of post-partum depression and no plans for looking after the child once the mother starts work again all add up to a special kind of picture that seems to be associated with the absence of "child imaging". This pathological state seems to us to be associated with an early inability of the mother to make loving relationship, which she felt in her infancy with her own mother and which would explain certain maternal inherited features of failure to grow.