It has been quite the year of travel and presenting workshops in all parts of North America. I sat down and counted my saved boarding passes a few weeks ago and realized that I had sat on 57 separate flights since January. I always look forward to the flights because I never know who I am going to be destined to meet and engage. I call my seat mates "divine appointments." This year I have had interesting appointments, to be sure. The conversation when we are cruising at 35,000 feet usually revolves around childbirth in the US. Most people are completely unaware of the state of maternity care in our country, but always in complete agreement that the birth process and immediate post partum care plays a role in shaping the relationship between mother and baby and future behaviors of the child.
I recall a woman from North Carolina crying in the middle of the night as we flew from San Diego to Charlotte, when she realized the impact that birth could possibly have played in the lives of the kindergarten children she has been teaching for the past 20 plus years. She recounted that she had home births, quite by chance, in the Chicago area in the 1970s with Gregory White. The depth of our conversation struck her on the heart level and that is what led to her tears. We prayed together in the darkened cabin with lightening flashes in the sky as our only illumination. There was also a business man from New York on a flight from Chicago to Atlanta who vowed to let every pregnant woman, and every woman thinking about having a baby, know that they needed to investigate their choices and consider a home birth or waterbirth.
The common thread that binds us all to this message is that people understand immediately that there is a connection between the way we are born and the way we develop in our psyches.
The impact of birthing practices on future health and well being becomes obvious to everyone when having quiet personal conversations.
The travel has taken me back to Oregon from my new home in Ft. Lauderdale, to California, Kansas, Ontario, Canada, North Carolina, Arizona, Illinois, Tennessee, Georgia, Bermuda, Washington, and different parts of Florida.
As the fall conferences begin, I look forward to my "divine appointments" and to meeting the wonderful, genuine women and men in each conference and workshop who desire to change the way we welcome babies into the world.
Showing posts with label midwives. Show all posts
Showing posts with label midwives. Show all posts
Monday, September 21, 2009
Friday, March 9, 2007
What We Do in Pregnancy and Birth Matters
What I see is just the covering
The most important is invisible....
From the Little Prince by A. de Saint-Exupéry
This question came in this morning and I decided to make it a separate topic.
"implying that children, and adults, are different than they would have been had their mothers had different "experiences." This seems an extraordinary claim. Have you any proof of this?"
Yes, there are ever increasing volumes of proof scientifically, both retrospective and prospective, as well as observational, that lead scientists, researchers, behavioral psychologists, cellular biologists and neurologists to the same conclusion. WHAT WE DO IN PREGNANCY AND BIRTH MATTERS.......AND affects the way we live life.
I will post a comprehensive bibliography on my website in a few days that will give you the actual scientific references. The research in this area has been going on for almost fifty years.
The mind of the child - what are the influences? What are the memories? Do we make decisions at birth and before that effect our relationship with the world?
Memory before 3 years old is intrinsic - always there, present, taking everything in and storing the memory in the brain for future reference. It is on a cellular level, flavoring and coloring all our responses.
Bruce Lipton, PhD, a medical school professor and author, states in his book, "The Biology of Belief" that humans are not, as was previously believed, victims of our genes, but that the environment and things that go on in our environment, including pregnancy and birth, has a direct effect on our DNA.
He goes on to explain that the activity of cells reacts to the environment, but more specifically, our perception of the environment directly controls the activity of our genes.
Dr. Joe Dispenza, an expert in neuro-biology stated in a recent interview, "There is scientific proof that the mind state of a pregnant mother affects the growth of her baby's brain. Dr. Dispenza elaborated, "A mother who is relaxed and in an environment in which she is able to cope adequately - rather than one that causes her chronic stress - is going to encourage the development of the fetus's forebrain, the area that allows us to reach logical conclusions, control our impulses, and successfully navigate our emotions." Inadequate development of the forebrain has been suggested as a possible explanation for aggressive and anti-social behavior in children, potentially leading to violent behavior, criminal offenses, and higher rates of drug abuse later in life.
Researchers conclude that the mother who is relaxed and free from stress during birth gives birth much more easily, sometimes painlessly and with a totally different attitude. And the baby who is placed on her chest immediately and left there skin to skin for many hours receives a message of love, attention, completeness, welcome and perceives infinite possibilities. Not true for the baby whose mother gives birth in pain, stress, with drugs that the baby also receives, and is immediately separated. A painful or traumatic birth can be overcome with remedial work and an acute awareness of what the baby is trying to communicate after birth.
A stressful, painful birth is not a prescription for psychiatric problems for the rest of ones life, nor is a gentle birth a guarantee that a child will have an easy peaceful life, but.....there is a connection. This connection is virtually ignored by the medical community and is only now being addressed publicly in films, books, and in the press. I'll write more on this topic in future posts. A very good film to watch is, "What Babies Want: A Exploration of the Consciousness of Infants.
Dr. Joe Dispenza, famed neurologist featured in the film, What the Bleep Do We Know, will lead a presentation that addresses the biology of the infant mind at the first Gentle Birth World Congress and Whole Baby Expo, September 27 – 30, 2007, at thePortland , Oregon
The most important is invisible....
From the Little Prince by A. de Saint-Exupéry
This question came in this morning and I decided to make it a separate topic.
"implying that children, and adults, are different than they would have been had their mothers had different "experiences." This seems an extraordinary claim. Have you any proof of this?"
Yes, there are ever increasing volumes of proof scientifically, both retrospective and prospective, as well as observational, that lead scientists, researchers, behavioral psychologists, cellular biologists and neurologists to the same conclusion. WHAT WE DO IN PREGNANCY AND BIRTH MATTERS.......AND affects the way we live life.
I will post a comprehensive bibliography on my website in a few days that will give you the actual scientific references. The research in this area has been going on for almost fifty years.
The mind of the child - what are the influences? What are the memories? Do we make decisions at birth and before that effect our relationship with the world?
Memory before 3 years old is intrinsic - always there, present, taking everything in and storing the memory in the brain for future reference. It is on a cellular level, flavoring and coloring all our responses.
Bruce Lipton, PhD, a medical school professor and author, states in his book, "The Biology of Belief" that humans are not, as was previously believed, victims of our genes, but that the environment and things that go on in our environment, including pregnancy and birth, has a direct effect on our DNA.
He goes on to explain that the activity of cells reacts to the environment, but more specifically, our perception of the environment directly controls the activity of our genes.
Dr. Joe Dispenza, an expert in neuro-biology stated in a recent interview, "There is scientific proof that the mind state of a pregnant mother affects the growth of her baby's brain. Dr. Dispenza elaborated, "A mother who is relaxed and in an environment in which she is able to cope adequately - rather than one that causes her chronic stress - is going to encourage the development of the fetus's forebrain, the area that allows us to reach logical conclusions, control our impulses, and successfully navigate our emotions." Inadequate development of the forebrain has been suggested as a possible explanation for aggressive and anti-social behavior in children, potentially leading to violent behavior, criminal offenses, and higher rates of drug abuse later in life.
Researchers conclude that the mother who is relaxed and free from stress during birth gives birth much more easily, sometimes painlessly and with a totally different attitude. And the baby who is placed on her chest immediately and left there skin to skin for many hours receives a message of love, attention, completeness, welcome and perceives infinite possibilities. Not true for the baby whose mother gives birth in pain, stress, with drugs that the baby also receives, and is immediately separated. A painful or traumatic birth can be overcome with remedial work and an acute awareness of what the baby is trying to communicate after birth.
A stressful, painful birth is not a prescription for psychiatric problems for the rest of ones life, nor is a gentle birth a guarantee that a child will have an easy peaceful life, but.....there is a connection. This connection is virtually ignored by the medical community and is only now being addressed publicly in films, books, and in the press. I'll write more on this topic in future posts. A very good film to watch is, "What Babies Want: A Exploration of the Consciousness of Infants.
Dr. Joe Dispenza, famed neurologist featured in the film, What the Bleep Do We Know, will lead a presentation that addresses the biology of the infant mind at the first Gentle Birth World Congress and Whole Baby Expo, September 27 – 30, 2007, at the
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)