The reception and taking care of forced migrants with mental health issues is undoubtedly a very complex task. The literature shows that reception systems are characterized by a high level of fragmentation due to poor collaboration among services that are required to respond to complex and multidimensional needs brought by forced migrants. Starting from the need to deepen what elements support or hinder the implementation of the services’ networks for the care and management of forced migrants, qualitative research was conducted within a constructivist paradigm. As the literature reveals a lack of studies considering the perspective of practitioners, we decided to explore the representations of professionals working with migrants in northern Italy in four different service areas (health and psychological well-being, reception, family, and legal areas). A total of 24 professionals (13 F and 11 M) with an average age of 42.4 years were involved in four focus groups according to the four areas. A paper–pencil content analysis was conducted following IPA guidelines. The results show strengths, weaknesses, and elements of improvement for service network implementation. The needs of forced migrants seem to be effectively met only through a service network that takes shape in the interweaving of social, organizational, group, and individual levels.

The prenatal period is a critical window for the emergence of sensorimotor coordination and early relational processes. Within this framework, yawning—a stereotyped behavior linked to arousal regulation and social contagion—offers a unique opportunity to explore maternal-fetal relationships before birth. While contagious yawning has been extensively studied in postnatal contexts, its presence and developmental role in utero remain unexplored. This study investigated whether fetal yawning behavior is modulated by maternal yawning, suggesting a primitive form of behavioral contagion within the dyad. Thirty-six pregnant participants were exposed to video stimuli designed to elicit yawns, while fetal facial movements were recorded using 2D ultrasound. Maternal and fetal yawning frequencies were analyzed across four conditions: baseline, maternal still-face, maternal mouth opening/closing movements, and maternal yawning. Fetal and maternal time series were further examined using Cross Recurrence Quantification Analysis (CRQA), and an LSTM-based neural network was employed for automated behavioral classification. Results showed a significant increase in fetal yawns following maternal yawning, but not during control conditions, indicating selective behavioral responsiveness. CRQA revealed stronger temporal structure in true mother–fetus dyads than in bootstrap-shuffled pairings, suggesting non-random coordination. The LSTM model accurately distinguished yawning from other facial actions, supporting the reliability of the behavioral data. These findings provide the first evidence of prenatal yawning contagion and support the notion that behavioral alignment may reflect embodied mechanisms of attunement that precede postnatal social engagement, offering new insights into the developmental origins of intersubjectivity.

Yawning is a phylogenetically preserved and highly stereotyped behavior observed across vertebrates.¹ In humans, it emerges early in development, as it is already present prenatally.^2,3 Qualitative studies show that fetal yawns display a structured motor pattern closely resembling adult yawns, suggesting a role in early sensorimotor organization,^4,5 and they have been proposed to support the maturation of brainstem central pattern generators and early synaptic development.^6,7 Due to its early emergence in development, prenatal yawning has largely been interpreted as driven by endogenous programs, whereas in postnatal life, yawning can also be shaped by the social context through contagion, a phenomenon linked to sensorimotor mirroring and affective attunement.^8,9 Here, we tested whether prenatal yawning may also be modulated by maternal behavior. Using ultrasound recordings of fetal facial activity combined with controlled elicitation of maternal yawning, we show that fetal yawning selectively increases following maternal yawns but not during non-contagious control conditions. Temporal analyses reveal structured coordination between maternal and fetal yawning, and machine-learning classification identifies shared kinematic signatures across maternal and fetal yawns. These findings suggest that fetal yawning might also be embedded within a dyadic sensorimotor context in which maternal behavior shapes fetal expression, suggesting that forms of behavioral resonance and embodied alignment precede birth and contribute to the early foundations of social attunement.

Multisensory integration is a fundamental principle of brain function, yet its prenatal origins remain largely unknown. Using Doppler ultrasonography in 58 uncomplicated singleton pregnancies (28–32 weeks of gestation), we examined fetal cerebrovascular responses to unimodal visual, unimodal vibrotactile, and bimodal visuo-vibrotactile stimulation across the anterior, middle, and posterior cerebral arteries. Visuo-vibrotactile stimulation did not elicit a uniform response: it selectively reduced pulsatility index in the PCA while increasing it in the ACA, with MCA responses remaining close to baseline. This anterior-posterior dissociation was confirmed by a significantly negative PCA-ACA shift index and reproduced by end-diastolic velocity changes with the expected opposite sign. Multisensory benchmark analyses revealed an artery-specific profile consistent with selective non-additive modulation rather than nonspecific paired-stimulation effects, while fetal heart rate remained stable across conditions. The convergence of hemodynamic measures and the absence of cardiac or baseline differences suggest a genuine cerebrovascular response rather than generalized arousal. These findings reveal that convergent sensory input can shape fetal cerebral hemodynamics in utero, identifying a rudimentary but spatially organized form of prenatal cross-modal sensitivity and suggesting that the foundations of multisensory integration begin to emerge before birth.

Humans are spontaneously inclined to contagiously influence one another, but what drives this propensity remains largely unexplored. Our hypothesis is that multisensory integration processes exert an indirect influence on behavioral contagion through their direct impact on Self-Other boundaries. In a twofold approach, the present study aimed to map out (Experiment 1; n=50) and then perturb (Experiment 2; n=30) the assumed hierarchy behind this basic social skill. Results confirmed that a larger temporal range of multisensory integration resulted in a blurred Self-Other distinction which in its turn facilitated contagious behaviors. Moreover, narrowing the multisensory integration window through targeted sensory training, the Self-Other boundaries became sharper and, consequently, the occurrence of contagious behaviors was reduced. Overall, these findings emphasize the mediation role of the Self-Other boundaries between sensory integration and social processes advancing both theoretical understanding and translational opportunities in this domain.