The baby's body does not exist in isolation. In the previous chapter, the meaning of the baby's body was continually processed through the eyes of the mother observing her baby. The baby's body comes into existence through the very physical experience of the mother being pregnant and giving birth. Care of a child, particularly a baby, is intricately involved with holding, handling and feeding. Communication between mother and baby is sensory and physical: motherhood is a bodily experience. In these early stages before language, but also as the child grows, the experience of motherhood is one of imagining oneself into the world of the baby and of holding one's baby in one's fantasies and in one's identity. This is partly what Winnicott means by the phrase ‘there is no such thing as a baby’. ‘If you set out to describe a baby, you will find that you are describing a baby and someone. A baby cannot exist alone, but is essentially part of a relationship’ (Winnicott, 1964: 88). Winnicott is suggesting that investigating babyhood can only be done through investigating mother–infant interaction, since it is impossible to separate the two. Similarly, there is no such thing as a mother. If you set out to describe a mother, you must find a mother and baby. Investigating motherhood is incomplete without investigating the mother's experience of the minute communications and occurrences between mother and child, and the ways in which the mother makes sense of her own identity through the relationship she has with her baby. This is at least partly the case because of its importance to mothers; in this study, the mother–infant dyad and maternal care were given more salience than contemplation of meanings of motherhood for the woman herself. Maternal care is as much about the mother's mind as it is about the process of mother minding baby.

This chapter suggests that HIV dominates mothers’ interpretations of maternal care, just as in the previous chapter HIV dominated the interpretation of every mark on the baby's body, from diarrhoea to nappy rash to a smile or a pierced ear. It will be suggested in this chapter that fear of infection dominated constructions of motherhood. Many of the normal anxieties of motherhood (Is my baby safe and healthy? Am I a good mother?