While stimulation and protection are crucial to your child’s emotional and social development from the moment of birth, ongoing research shows that the relationship with your child actually begins in the womb. Here’s how to get off to an early start and nurture your bond with your child before birth.
Since Dr Arthur Janov published his theory that adult neuroses and anxieties stem from unmet needs in childhood, primal therapists have evolved the theory that much adult trauma actually stems back to the first nine months in the womb.
While this may sound unreal to many because the womb is thought to be a safe and secure place of succour, research has shown that for a lot of people life in the womb was an anxiety-filled struggle to stay alive.
“The mental apparatus of a baby is not suddenly thrown into gear with birth. All the complex tasks associated with living outside the womb – like breathing, sucking, swallowing, touching, smelling, looking, listening – are the end result of mental work long before birth,” says Thomas Verney in The Secret Life of the Unborn Child (Delta, 1988).“By the fourth month after conception, the foetus will suck if his lips are stroked. At five months, if a loud sound is made next to the mother, the unborn child will raise his hands and cover his ears.”
Which is why Patti Good, an emotional wellbeing and relaxation expert specializing in motherhood, promotes the importance of bonding, communicating and acknowledging that the baby is a healthy, happy part of the family from the moment of conception.
MEMORIES ARE MADE OF THIS
According to Good, memories of life in the womb are carried through to adulthood. “I work as a journey therapist where we focus on clearing cell memory using The Journey technique developed by Brandon Bays (Atria, 2002). I have had numerous clients over the years who have gone back to their womb experience, only to pick up exactly what their mother was thinking and feeling at that time.”
Says Althea Hayton, author of wombtwin.com and editor of Untwinned: perspectives on the death of a twin before birth by David Chamberlain (Wren Publications, 2007), “Babies are not a blank slate! They have already had a lot of adventures before birth, and, as Chamberlain shows, the survivors of a vanishing twin pregnancy often have an experience of death that can haunt them all their lives.”
Primal therapists believe that many unborn children who had a difficult time surviving in the womb spend their lives wracked with anxiety and pain, which often manifests itself in bizarre or unusual ways, says therapist Bonnie Randolph. “Some of them transform their pain in admirable ways – creative artists like Vincent Van Gogh, the many sensitive, so-called schizophrenics, and the successful men and women who struggle against incredible odds to achieve, and yet are so full of tension that one wonders how they manage a day’s work. They manage because they did so in the uterus under the most gruelling conditions. They had the integrity, the will, and the strength to stay alive despite the cost – a lifetime of suffering.”
MOOD AND EMOTION
Though the mother’s state of mind is not the only influencing factor in determining the health of the unborn child, Good says it plays a major role.
“Maternal ambivalence has been proven to be as detrimental to the emotional, physical and mental development of the baby/child as outright abuse of the mother during the pregnancy. This indicates how crucial it is for healthy development that a baby needs love, connection and bonding right from conception.”
“The happier and more relaxed the mom feels, the calmer the baby will be, but we need to differentiate between ‘mood’ and ‘ongoing strong negative emotion’. Having a bad day is very different to the stress experienced from being in an abusive relationship/overstressed at work/depression.”
If the negative emotion is prolonged, Good advises that mothers seek professional help. “Because pregnancy is a huge transition for the mom, many old unresolved issues or emotions from her past may surface. If left unresolved, they may negatively impact both the birth and the post-natal period.”
GENTLE DADDY
In keeping with modern attitudes to the role the father plays in the child’s birth, Good says much the same applies to Dad’s mood and regard for the child in utero.
Citing a study conducted at the University of Salzburg, Good says mothers who developed a deep connection with their babies and interacted with play and talk tended to have a healthy self-image and enjoyed the changes happening to their body and body shape. Furthermore, fathers who were involved in this bonding displayed the same respect and awe for their partner and the miracle her body was undergoing.
“The closeness of the couple translated into a direct physical impact on the babies. These mothers experienced fewer premature births and fewer low-birthweight babies. The study also showed greater socialisation of babies whose parents had actively bonded both with the baby and each other during the pregnancy. Reciprocal nurturing of both parents sends a strong message of security to the baby, letting it know it is loved and safe,” concludes Good.
The opposite effect is shown by Verney in studies which indicate abuse, upset and volatile emotions experienced by a mom who is in a bad relationship have a detrimental effect on the baby’s development, while birth research guru Michael Odent demonstrates how traumatic births and those with a high level of medical intervention can lead to criminal behaviour, substance abuse and mental health issues later in life.
A SMALL PRICE
According to Chamberlain, who has been developing early parenting programmes since the 1980s, the outcome has shown that unborn babies benefit from communication and stimulation by forming stronger relationships with their parents. They also show precocious development of speech, fine and gross motor performance, better emotional self-regulation, and better cognitive processing.
In short, these children grow up with greater empathy, better social skills and higher IQ, says Hayton. A precious reward for a little care in a competitive and often unfeeling world.
(BOX) CONNECT AND GROW
There are a range of factors which aid the wellbeing of both mother and foetus.
1. Relax. “Relaxation is vital! When the mum’s body releases endorphins during relaxation, this means she is actively eliminating any stress hormones in her system, as endorphins and stress hormones have a mutually exclusive relationship. This means that the mum is filled with a deep sense of wellbeing and the baby gets the benefit as well. Mums who practice regular relaxation during the pre-natal period have babies that tend to be calmer and feed and sleep better,” says Good.
2. Touch. “Rhythmic touch is also a lovely way of communicating with your baby. What I mean by this is creating a specific pattern of touch, for example pat pat pat, rub rub rub, stroke stroke stroke. This can easily be repeated after the baby is born to give a beautiful sense of continuity.”
According to Verney, the baby responds directly to tactile stimulation by the seventh week after conception. By the sixteenth week, s/he is kicking his feet, curling his toes and sucking his thumb to both explore and comfort himself. “By stroking the abdomen gently from underneath the naval, expectant moms will quickly observe that their baby will stop kicking and relax. By about the seventh month you can start stroking firmly and repetitively from baby’s head towards her toes, which is thought to accelerate the development of the baby’s peripheral nervous system. More importantly, this massage helps the pregnant woman (and her partner) to make contact with the baby, enhancing the baby’s feeling of being loved.”
3. Play music. “Music is a well-known way of connecting with your baby. It evokes both emotion and memory in the listener and if this is the mum, then the baby will feel the effect. Babies who are exposed to soft music or singing during their time in the womb tend to be happier, calmer and better adjusted to life outside the womb,” says Good, who recommends listening to relaxation CDs like those at www.babyjourney.com.
Expectant moms should listen to soothing music 10 minutes or so twice a day, sitting comfortably or reclining in pleasant surroundings, advises Verney. “Besides stress relief, the music stimulates the baby’s mind and serves as an emotional bridge between the mother and her unborn child.”
Adds Good: “I witnessed an amazing example recently which shows just how aware little babies are. One mum played a piece of classical music to her baby all the way through her pregnancy. Once the baby was born, she was so sick of it, she hurled the cassette into the back of a cupboard. About five years later the child found the tape and listened to it, after which she ran up to her mom exclaiming, ‘Mummy, it’s the ‘before music’, it’s the ‘before music’.”
4. Talk and read stories. After conducting a study in which six mothers read story A and six story B to their unborn children twice a day, Verney is adamant about communicating with your unborn child. “When their babies were born, the researchers offered the infants a choice between the two stories. Within a few hours after birth, 11 of the 12 newborns adjusted their sucking rhythm to hear the familiar story as opposed to the new one. This provides the first direct evidence that not only does the newborn hear and recognize the mother’s voice, but also remembers the words.”
5. Eat well. On a nutritional level, cut your intake of toxic substances, such as nicotine, narcotics, too much alcohol and caffeine, and up your intake of vitamins. Omega 3 has been shown to have a direct impact on the development of the child’s brain. Advises Althea Hayton, “Eat as many fresh vegetables as you can swallow. Lots of fruit, plenty of dairy if you can tolerate it, calcium-rich foods such as nuts or seeds, and a good protein-rich meal every day. If there is morning sickness, don’t eat sugary foods like sweet biscuits. Dry wholewheat toast, or soft fruits like bananas are best together with diluted fruit juice. Rest in bed until the blood sugar goes up and then start the day.”
(BOX) Pamela’s story
Pamela* of Cape Town has spent many years in “deep feeling therapies” working though her traumatic beginnings.
“I initially began therapy to work through childhood traumas,” she says, “and so I was most surprised to find that as I went deeper, memories from long before birth began to surface. My parents fought a lot when my mother was pregnant, and I would become terrified. Not only did I hear the angry voices, but my mother’s stress hormones came pouring into me through my umbilical cord, making me feel horribly agitated, anxious and overstimulated.
At one stage in my therapy I started having panic attacks, and one particular incident was very upsetting. I had been invited by my cousin’s wife for tea. On the way there, the thought came to me that though Diedré had invited me, my cousin Chris hadn’t, and that he would be angry.
When I arrived, Chris hadn’t come home yet, so Diedré and I chatted. But when Chris arrived, I began to shake and could barely get a word out. I wanted to hide from him, and I didn’t know why. I was in a panic attack for about an hour. I desperately wanted to go home, but was afraid to say so, because if I spoke, it would draw attention to me, and I didn’t want to be “seen”. I was trying to be “invisible”.
By the time I got home I was aware that the feeling was about being invited by a woman but being unwelcome by her husband. Suddenly I was back in the womb. I lay down and started sobbing, “I mustn’t move, I mustn’t ‘breathe’, I mustn’t grow. I must hide in here, because if he finds out I am in here, Daddy will be very angry.” Then I was sobbing, “Daddy, Daddy, I didn’t come just to be with mommy, I came to be with you too. Please love me Daddy.”
The crying brought great relief, and I realised that I was reliving how I had felt my mother’s terror of having to tell my father that she was pregnant with me. He hadn’t wanted children, but she had. During my life I had often ‘hidden’ from people and been afraid of being seen. Since reliving that early scene, I have become more confident.
Before he died, my father said to me, “I didn’t ever want children. But I want you to know that once you got here, you were very welcome, and you wound your little fingers round my heart.” It was such a relief to me to hear him say what I had always known (first unconsciously and then consciously, and we were able to heal our relationship before he died.
* not her real name
FURTHER READING
Primal Health (http://www.birthworks.org/primalhealth/) run by birth and research guru Michel Odent.
From Fetus to Child by Alessandra Piontell (Routledge, 1992)
The Inside Story by Joan Raphael Leff (Sheldon Press, 1993)
Published in Aquarius, Dubai, and Move, South Africa. Copyright Sharon Marshall 2008.
