Author Archive

The Amplification Method

This is an approach suggested by Carl Jung. In essence it is to honour what the dream states. In the dream example below David is sleeping on a mattress, but it could have been a bed or a hammock, or even a sleeping bag. So why a mattress and why in the garden, and why not alone? Having noted the specifics of our dream, we then amplify what we know about them. We ask ourselves such questions as ‘What connections do I have with a mattress? What does sleeping on a mattress on the floor mean? Have I ever done it? When? Why? Where? In what circumstances? Does it represent some condition?’ Thus we bring out as much information as we can about each dream specific. This includes memories, associated ideas, recent events, anything relevant.

Example: ‘I am sleeping rough in a garden with a woman I do not love. I think I should try to make the best of the situation, but my feelings against it are too strong. Then I decide I don’t ever want to live like that again and tear up the mattress we slept on. As I do this I realise, as if waking from amnesia, that Pat lives just across the road. She has specially moved there because of our love. I realise with horror I had forgotten and may have lost her.’ David H.

One of Carl Jung’s favourite questions in using amplification was to get to the very basic level by asking, ‘Suppose I had no idea what the word mattress (or whatever the dream symbol) meant, describe the thing to me in such a way I cannot fail to understand what it is.’ In response to this one might say that a mattress is something used to soften or cushion the contact between our body and the floor while we rest or sleep. It’s size might indicate whether it were used by one or two people, so might suggest relationship. In continuing the amplification using the questions suggested (when? why? where? what? how? who with? etc.) ones connections, feeling and conceptions of the symbol are slowly unfolded. In the case of David, he was sleeping on a mattress on the floor in his present relationship. But he realised from the dream that he had slipped back into attitudes which damaged his prior relationship, so might very well damage the present one.

P. W. Martin emphasises it is amplification not free association which is sought. Free association may lead to other ideas and feelings not directly connected to the dream specifics. Amplification honours the precise expression of the dream and attempts to uncover out of what memories, feelings, insight or experience the dreamer has formed or created the dream. Therefore the message of the unique dream is found.

If David had used free association with the dream, starting with the word ‘mattress’, it might have gone on to – duvet, shop, money, bank, overdraft, work, boss. As such it could end in a completely different series of realisations than the mattress and its direct associations. In using amplification, after moving out from the central symbol to find its associations, one then comes back to the symbol again to check for relevance with the dream theme. If one did not do this, one could simply start from any word and explore associations. The inward inclinations of the person doing the word association would lead to issues that are on their mind or deeply felt, but it would not throw light on the specific dream.

If a professional analyst is working with the dreamer, he or she may help the dreamer amplify the dream in other ways too. For instance the dream of David’s which included a mattress and a love affair, may have been preceded by other dreams with the same objects or themes. If so what might be understood by a comparison? When a dream is honoured specifically, there are often parts of it which not only state what a life situation is, but also comment on it. David’s dream once more exemplifies this. Not only does it illustrate his attitudes in the present relationship, but points out the love displayed toward him which he had forgotten. The dream specifically points to the lapse of awareness as leading to the attitudes of living without love. In other words David has forgotten how much love his partner has displayed in actually coming to live with him. In forgetting this aspect of their relationship he lapses back into old attitudes. In this second phase of amplification, the dreamer would also be helped to see their dream in the light of its social implications. Therefore an Asian dreamer might have different cultural responses to situations than a European. David daily life, for instance, included sleeping on the floor on a mattress. If it had not the dream would have signified something different, perhaps a sense of impoverishment.

A professional analyst would also help the dreamer realise any connections existing between their dream and similar themes in mythology, fairy tales and religious practices or beliefs. Jung would often use active imagination after the amplification, to further explore the dream. See: active imagination; association of ideas with dream; assisted passage; postures movement and body language; processing dreams; word analysis of dreams; settings.

Movements to Aid in Pregnancy

Chapter one of Yoga and Childbirth

Being Movement

Despite having taught yoga postures for a number of years, I nevertheless feel that the best exercise is that which expresses our functions. There is nothing more fulfilling and satisfying than movements in which, and through which, we express our feelings, our longings, our needs and our life. Stop for a moment and consider the hundreds of movements you make each day, whereby you fulfill yourself, provide your needs, express your feelings or vent your anger. Take some of the most basic movements and postures such as going to the toilet, eating, breathing, working to provide your needs, loving each other, holding hands, having a baby. Without going any further than these few basic movements, let us look at them and see what a wonder of satisfaction or frustration can lie behind them.

Going to the toilet, for instance; what is it about as a movement? It is obvious in this that we fulfil a need on the part of our body to be rid of waste. In fulfilling this need fully we have a sense of pleasure and satisfaction. Something has triggered off a movement in the muscles of the colon, and if this urge to move is not allowed expression, then this part of our being is not allowed to satisfy itself. In that degree we are unsatisfied.

Similarly, eating requires movements of the body, some gross, some subtle. The way we perform these movements, the quality or poverty of being we bring to this activity, largely controls, once again, the degree of pleasure and satisfaction we harvest from the whole process of eating and digestion. Many people have seen in their own experience that to eat in the relaxed company of friends produces in them quite a different state of digestion and well-being than to eat alone. It is also well known that to eat while emotionally upset very often leads to vomiting, or at least to impoverished digestion and absorption. So it is not only the movement, but the quality, emotional tone, and fullness of expression that we bring to it that largely controls the degree of satisfaction we reap from eating.

In our breathing this is particularly noticeable, as it is a process we can watch more easily. In doing so we can see that our breathing intimately mirrors not only our physical activity, but also the state of our soul. Not only does our breathing quicken or slow as we exert ourselves or rest, but also, while sitting reading a book, or when absorbed in a play, our breathing reflects our emotional state, either being long and slow in peace, or agitated in emotional turbulence. So much is this so that psychological problems can literally be diagnosed by an examination of one’s breathing.

Work should be fulfilling

When we come to the movements we make in our work, in a general sense, the man or woman who works hours in a garden, planting and hoeing, to grow food to fulfil their needs, is having a far more fulfilling exercise than a person who goes to a gymnasium simply to ‘get enough exercise.

This undoubtedly needs further comment lest it be misunderstood. I am not saying that the gardener will be healthier, stronger, or more exercised. I am saying that in general there will be more satisfaction and fulfilment in it when there is a direct connection between a fulfilment of a need or love, and the activity performed. If the person in question sees that the produce grown fulfils the need for food; if he likes this form of activity and is also expressing his sense of pleasure; if he is also intellectually interested in the technical side of the garden – then he is literally fulfilling himself in innumerable ways. Not only does he use his physical energy to provide for his physical needs, but in doing so he experiences pleasure, satisfies the need of the mind to occupy itself in learning, study and application; and besides all this, the need for fresh air and sunlight is fulfilled; and possibly in some cases, especially in flower gardening, his sense of beauty also.

Obviously I have used gardening merely as an example. What I am trying to emphasise is the need, in our activities, to satisfy ourselves as fully as we can. If we do not recognise our needs then we may easily overlook them and feel incomplete. If we do not find activities which satisfy several parts of our being in the one action3 as in the above example, then we may either be rushing around trying to fit in innumerable different activities to satisfy different needs, or remain largely frustrated.

We can see more of these needs in the act of love, and its movements; or just in cuddling. Likewise, the birth of the baby expresses definite movements, a reflection of Life itself. We can therefore begin to see that our life is largely a matter of being ourselves as fully as we can, and in this, finding the reward of pleasure and satisfaction. Having a baby falls into a similar category. Margaret Brady, in her book Having a Baby Easily, says, ‘It is a CREATIVE function. It is an ATHLETIC function. It is a SPIRITUAL function.’ This is a very helpful definition, because it aids us to see that, being an ‘athletic’ function, or at least involving as it does muscular activity of a strenuous kind, it therefore requires the mother to be capable of such activity.

I do feel, however, that this definition may make us overlook the fact that in being a mother it is not just parts of our life that are involved. Really, our whole being is involved, from heights to depths – body, soul, and spirit. This is why I believe yoga has such a lot to teach us about childbirth. But Margaret Brady is certainly right when she says, ‘Since it is also an ATHLETIC function, she must have the NECESSARY ATHLETIC TRAINING for the event.’ But, as we have seen, the quality and fulfilment of this ‘athletic event’ is conditioned by the emotions we bring to bear on it; our intellectual interest and involvement, which is shown in the very act of reading this book; our relationship with our source of life, and the way we link up our other interests with pregnancy.

Movement is essential to life

Looking at exercise from a slightly different viewpoint, the medical or physiological, we can see that movement is essential to life. In fact, movement is the very expression of life. One of the most obvious differences between the living and the dead is movement, for while we live, movement never ceases. Whereas machines wear out through use, the body literally thrives on being made to exercise its systems and possibilities. It comes to the peak of its efficiency through being used. This is so obvious to us that it needs no argument. Our joints become stiff with inactivity, supple with use; our muscles small and flabby with disuse, large and sleek with activity. Great activity and deep relaxation are laws of the universe, as we 11 as of our body.

Recent research has proved that much of what we call ageing is due not to ‘natural’ processes, but to lack of correct nutrition, exercise and rest. People like Hauser, Kordel and Bragg are proof of their own philosophy in regard to diet, exercise and rest. They are all ‘elderly’, but each has little or no sign of ageing. Modern medical research has uncovered many of the processes which cause this, but in general the inadequacy of diet and exercise can be summed up in its results by seeing what it does to our bones. Bones are not dead structures, but are made of living bone cells, called osteocytes. As in all other cellular structures, there is a continuous process of breakdown and repair. In many people, especially in the aged, the process of building up does not keep pace with the process of breakdown. This produces weak, fragile bones. One often hears of old people falling and breaking a thigh or hip. In fact, what usually happens is that the bone has become so weakened it has broken and caused them to fall. It is now realised that such fragility in the bones is not a process of age but is due to the lack of sex hormones in the blood and inadequate exercise. The sex hormones stimulate production of osteocytes. Similarly, muscular activity puts strains on the skeleton, and this stimulates not only the flow of blood but also the production of bone cells. These bone cells use proteins, calcium salts, and vitamins C and D in building fresh ‘bone Thus it becomes obvious that lack of sufficient exercise and nutrients can cause degenerative changes in the body. The degeneration of the bones is but one example of such changes throughout the whole body.

17. Be an oyster. Deep in the sea, oysters silently grow their lovely pearls. Be an oyster, hinged at the waist. Your baby is your pearl, and you are closing your shell around it. As with other postures, hold it until the feeling fades. But as you do it, feel the hard shell formed by legs, trunk and arms. All your life is enclosed by the shell. When you have finished, slowly open again.

18. Be an earthquake. Lastly, be an earthquake. Do it in any position you like, lying or standing. Imagine tremendous tensions and pressures slowly building up deep inside you. These are the anger and violence of the earth. Gradually feel them build up, and then maybe just a twitch as the first sign of the enormous release hits the surface. Then the whole earth shakes and vibrates as the wonderful release is accomplished. Let yourself go into it as fully as you are capable. Shout, groan, bang with the arms and legs, roll about, or whatever is in you to do. Don’t be held back in any of these ‘Being Movements by a sense of foolishness. These things are tremendously helpful, and we are not just playing for the sake of it. A whole chapter could be written on just what happens psychologically, physically and spiritually when we really involve ourselves in being these movements. But find out for yourself. Do them and see how wonderful they are; how relaxed and fulfilled you feel afterwards.

19. The birth position. After the last relaxation of the previous series, put a pillow under your head, draw the knees up, feet apart, hands by the side. The feet should be about a yard apart, knees fairly high. This is the birth position used almost exclusively throughout the civilised world. One of the few -disadvantages of this posture, as against the squat, is that there is an inclination to arch the back and tense the genital and rectal area during contractions. This was why we practised the tensions and relaxing in the squat position. Therefore try to tense the abdominal muscles while keeping the lower back relaxed and genital area untensed. In a sense, as will be explained later, the process of birth is not unlike certain parts of the spontaneous movements that occur during orgasm. This may seem far-fetched when compared with the average woman’s experience of birth. Nevertheless, there is some evidence to support the idea that birth should be as wild and wonderful as complete orgasm. That in most cases it is not, may simply point to the probability that most of us cannot fully surrender to spontaneous emotion and movements, and that the muscles of most women are not sufficiently well exercised or well nourished enough in the sense of present nutritional research. But it is hoped that these outlines of exercise and diet will go a long way to remedying this.

Earlier we talked about natural or instinctive postures the body assumes. it was said that because we often deny or prevent our instinctive drives we often fail to be able to assume these spontaneous postures and thus cannot experience the sense of pleasure and fulfilment arising with them. This is very true in the sex act, and also in childbirth. Virtually everyone recognises, even though they may not be very conscious of it, that during labour the contractions are spontaneous. Just as a deeper level of our being controls digestion and heartbeat, which we can interfere with or modify according to our emotions and tensions so also this deeper instinctive, or bio-energetic level, causes contractions and the process of birth. If our habits of tension or emotional reaction interfere with the natural development of such processes, pain and dissatisfaction can occur.

Thanks to the amazing work of Wilhelm Reich as expressed in his book The Function of the Orgasm, it is easy to see how much habits interfere with instinctive drives, which subsequently become painful instead of blissful. For instance, in the sex act spontaneous movements cause the abdominal muscles to contract, swivelling the pelvis forward and upwards. In the man this causes deeper penetration; in the woman a relaxation and ‘giving’ of the genitals. When lying on the floor, this movement causes a rising of the hips, but not of the lumbar region. In fact the hollow in the small of the back disappears, bringing that part of the back flat on to the floor. Also the head drops back and the mouth usually opens. When habits of emotional tension interfere with this spontaneous movement, it often happens that due to unconscious fear of genital pleasure, the hips draw hack instead of swivelling up. This makes the hollow in the back more pronounced. Or else genital tension causes the body to arch stiffly up causing the lower back to lift off the floor. Such tensions, which do not allow the genital pleasure to develop into the bliss of orgasm, instead cause such feelings to be experienced as disgusting, frightening, hateful, repugnant, or painful. We can learn an enormous amount from this in regard to childbirth. In a similar way, unconscious fears or tension can cause either a drawing back of the genitals during contractions, or an arching of the body upwards. The instinctive ecstasy of childbirth is also in the same way stopped from developing.

The following advice may cause shock in some quarters; it is nevertheless time that people know the details of this method based on modern psychology and ancient yoga. If some people doubt that such methods have ever been a part of yoga, I would agree that in this form, probably not. But any study of Tantric yoga, its principles and practices, will assure the reader that the method is developed from yoga principles, where the study of sexual relationship as an inner and outer fact are used. It is a bad reflection on our society that I should even feel the need to apologise, for the following are but natural expressions of our feelings.

Of course, it is all very well talking about this, but is there anything we can do that will be of practical help? Well, we can watch our sexual intercourse to see whether we allow the spontaneous movements to possess us without fear. If we observe the tensions that result in pulling back the hips or arching the back, we can attempt to relax them and face the fears that underlie them. For if the tension is caused by a feeling of guilt, sin, and dirtiness in regard to intercourse, then we will certainly have to face these feelings in relaxing the tension. You can also practise the movement and feeling of sexual ‘giving’ and surrender -in this posture.

In this technique, use your imagination freely. Hold in mind what has already been said about the spontaneous posture. Now imagine your response to intercourse. Allow your imagination to express itself in movement, letting the hips curve up, the head drop back quite loose and free to move, and the breath come in quick panting. Let all tension in the genitals drop away and the feeling of delight arising in the genitals develop. The aim is to let genital pleasure happen so that it relaxes all but the abdominal contraction that pulls the hips up. We also aim to become very conscious of the emotional and physical feeling of genital ‘giving’ and sexual surrender, or surrender to sexual feelings without sense of sin, guilt, or tension.

When this is achieved, allow any spontaneous movements of the hips to continue, although at first this may be jerky. Now realise that the contractions in this case are not to give your love -and being more deeply to your partner, but to give your love and being to the world in the form of your baby. Nevertheless, the movement is the same, and if successful, the joy is the same also. Please realise that you are practising this movement and giving so that at childbirth it will be habitual. That is, the hips up without hollowing the back; the genitals relaxed, surrendered to spontaneous movement.

20. Toning-up movements. While the above ways of ‘Being -Movement’ are quite different to the ‘yoga postures’ we usually read about, such postures are only a tiny part of yoga methods. Such ways of exercising as I have given have been used for centuries, but are little known. Likewise, there are some consciously motivated movements also used by various yogis, which are a great help in toning up our body. These are very simple, but have quite a profound influence on the body. When you first use them, do so very gently and for only about thirty seconds. But as you become accustomed to them, gradually lengthen the time of practice to five or even ten minutes. At first they may cause great discomfort inside the body because they massage the internal organs. This is why you must do them gently and only for a short period. If you patiently persist, however, these discomforts will gradually disappear, and sometimes even illnesses are cured.

The first of these movements is done by standing with feet slightly apart, body relaxed, knees free to move, and not stiff. Then slowly start circling the shoulders forward, up to the ears and back and down. Let the head move as it wishes. When you are doing this easily, slightly bend the knees and let the bottom jut back a little. Do this very slowly at first to get the feel of the movement. Now begin to straighten the knees and bring the hips forward and up. In other words, in time with the shoulder circling, let a wavelike movement occur with the hips. Eventually the hips are going backwards and forwards as the knees are bending and straightening.

The next movement is very simple, yet again it has profound results. Stand upright and relaxed. Very slowly begin to circle the hips in a clockwise direction. The feet need to be apart to help balance, and at first the head stays more or less in one place, just the hips circling sideways right, backwards, left and forwards. As you get the feel of it, let the circling become wider and wider, even bending slightly forward and back as the hips swing round. In the first movement the hips were going backwards and forwards. In this one they are going round and round. After circling clockwise, then circle anti-clockwise.

The last of these movements takes a bit more energy, but is again very simple. Stand with feet apart and bend the knees slightly, taking up a position skiers or skaters take – trunk forward, bottom back. Then begin to move the hips from side to side while remaining in the position. At first keep the trunk and arms still until you get used to the movement; then move your arms as if running or skating in time with the hip movements, but do not move the feet. So in fact it is like skating standing still.

Considering that it is advisable to also practise daily relaxation and breathing, the above complete exercises may need too much time. It is therefore suggested that through personal experiment you work out a routine for yourself which fits your timetable and abilities. I would suggest rather than cut out any of the postures or exercises, they should be practised a few on one day, a few another, until you have done them all, and then -start again. Or at least incorporate all the series over a period of several sessions. But if you have the energy and the time, practise them all daily. Always rest for some minutes after the postures.

Another point is that although the routine is directly designed for the already pregnant, it is nevertheless important to realise that whenever possible parenthood should be taken very -.seriously, seriously enough to prepare before conception in as many ways as possible. Endeavouring to get one’s body in tiptop condition is basic to all such preparation. Osteopathic adjustment to the spine; attempts to cure any digestive problems as indicted by acidity, coated tongue, etc.; treatment of any anaemia or weakness; and general all-round fitness; these should all be part of any such regime. This may sound like too much to ask. But frankly, the more you put into parenthood, the more you will get out of it. Certainly it will be more of a personally creative event.

Link to chapter two

Sugar Linked to Birth Defects

LONDON (UPI) — Researchers found pregnant women who eat foods with a high glycemic index such as cornflakes may increase the chance of birth defects. University of California researchers compared the diet of 454 mothers of children with neural tube defects like spina bifida, with 462 mothers who had healthy babies. The study, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, found the risk of birth defects doubled in women who ate lots of foods that give a quick sugar hit such as potatoes, white rice, white bread and some soft drinks — and among obese women it quadrupled.

Andrew Russell, chief executive of the Association for Spina Bifida and Hydrocephalus in London, said the research should be treated with caution and that further studies are needed. “Neural tube defect research is very complicated, and theories abound about the significance of sugars, proteins, vitamins and other micronutrients,” he told the BBC. “The idea that a sugar surge in the maternal blood could cause spina bifida, while not impossible, would need quite a lot of corroboration because there are so many other things that feed into the metabolic process.”

What candy (which is sugar) can do to you and to your kids:
Sugar is one of the most dangerous habits and addictions in our lives today. It is a proven fact that sugar increases insulin levels, which can lead to high blood pressure, high cholesterol, heart disease, diabetes, premature aging, obesity, tooth and gum decay, stomach problems, mental disturbances and many other physical and mental problems.

Sugar use also creates blood sugar imbalances in the body. When blood sugar drops too low after eating a high-sugar food, the fuel supply to the body is impaired, with adverse effects on mental function, physical energy and emotional stability. Symptoms of hypoglycemia (low blood sugar) can range anywhere from headaches, irritability and shaking when hungry to explosive anger, panic attacks, or crying easily for no apparent reason. Sugar can affect the quality of your life and your health dramatically. Many studies have shown that sugar is very effective in weakening the immune system and is a source of fuel for feeding cancer and tumors.

• Sugar can suppress the immune system.
• Sugar can cause hyperactivity, anxiety, difficulty concentrating, and crankiness in children.
• Sugar can cause hypoglycemia.
• Sugar can lead to alcoholism.
• Sugar can cause arthritis.
• Sugar can cause asthma.
• Sugar greatly assists the uncontrolled growth of Candida Albicans (yeast infections).
• Sugar can contribute to osteoporosis.
• Sugar can cause a decrease in insulin sensitivity.
• Sugar can increase cholesterol.
• Sugar can impair the structure of DNA.
• Sugar intake is higher in people with Parkinson’s disease.
• Sugar can damage the pancreas.
• Sugar can increase the body’s fluid retention.
• Sugar is enemy #1 of the bowel movement.
• Sugar can cause headaches, including migraine.
• Sugar plays a role in pancreatic cancer in women.
• Sugar can adversely affect school children’s grades and cause learning disorders.
• Sugar can cause depression.
• Sugar can contribute to Alzheimer’s disease.
• Sugar can lead to the formation of kidney stones.
• Sugar can be a risk factor of gallbladder cancer.
• Sugar can be intoxicating, similar to alcohol.
• Sugar can worsen the symptoms of children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
• High sucrose intake could be an important risk factor in lung cancer.
• Sugar increases the risk of polio.
• High sugar intake can cause epileptic seizures.
• Sugar causes high blood pressure in obese people.
• Sugar can lead to prostate cancer.
• Sweet food items increase the risk of breast cancer.
• Sugar is a risk factor in cancer of the small intestine.
• Sugar causes constipation.
• Sugar can increase the risk of stomach cancer.
• Sugar can cause renal (kidney) cell carcinoma.
• Sugar can cause liver tumors.
• Too much sugar can kill your sex life.
• Sugar can cause fatigue, moodiness, nervousness and depression.
• Sugar is common choice of obese individuals.
• High fructose consumption has been linked to liver disease.
• Sugar adds to the risk of bladder cancer.

The concern is not only about kids, according to the National Confectioners Association, “40 percent of American adults admit to stashing a few pieces of candy from the trick-or-treat bowl, and the candy association also found that:

• 41% admit that they sneak sweets from their own candy bowl.
• 62% of adults plan to give candies because “it’s a personal favorite” or a household tradition (55%).
• 90% of parents admit they sneak “goodies” from their kids’ trick-or-treat bags.

Protect yourself and your kids from this POISON!

Badr Bakry

Cleanse Your Life Now

Infantile “Amnesia” is Dead!

by David B. Chamberlain, Ph.D.

In academic circles, a long-standing prejudice against the reliability of all early and very early memory is collapsing. The least-likely period for memory to function, the intrauterine period, increasingly illuminated by ultrasound, has made it possible for visionary experimental psychologists to show that memory and learning systems are functioning. Babies still in the womb are signaling that they have become familiar with rhymes repeated to them daily over a four-week period. Likewise, immediately after birth, babies exposed to parents’ voices, musical passages, soap opera themes, news program sounds, sounds of their native language, as well as tastes and smells introduced in utero are all treated as familiar, that is, learned and remembered from weeks and months in the past.

Memory experts have continued to overlook the prima facie evidence provided by two- and three-year old children recalling specifics of their birth when they are first able to speak. This evidence, published in magazines for childbirth educators and parents in 1981, was never taken seriously in scientific circles. Ironically, for the last 16 years, we have had memory experts denying birth memory while new waves of three-year-olds were proving them wrong!

Psychologists have been enthralled with the theory of infantile amnesia since it was stated by Sigmund Freud in 1916. The popular observation that people rarely remember anything that happened to them before their third or fourth birthday turned an idea into dogma. It was further justified by theories of noted Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget, about the limitations of newborn intelligence and its development in discreet stages. After 40 years, these ideas are now crumbling under the weight of experimental evidence. Tearing down the wall of illusion regarding infant memory has taken a handful of brilliant experimental psychologists, completing over three dozen crucial experiments, and a full decade of time. As a result, infantile amnesia is dead.

A key idea in medicine and psychology which made it difficult to accept any sophisticated early use of the mind was the idea that the immature and unfinished brain could not support memory and learning. A further prejudice was that true episodic memory could not be tested with preverbal infants. These notions made it easy to avoid research and to dispute the evidence as it appeared. What the experimental psychologists have managed (against heavy odds) to prove is that children age three, age two, and age one are all capable of both immediate and long-term recall of specific events in their lives. Infants tested at two, four, and six months can recall details about hidden objects, their location, and size.

Ability to recall procedures involving a series of steps, after long delays, depends not on age but on the same factors and conditions which improve recall in older children and adults, such as the nature of the events, the number of times they experience them, and the availability of cues or reminders. Experts now conclude that babies are constantly remembering and learning what they need to know at the time; their memories are not lost, they are continually updated as learning progresses.

The old belief that infants are mentally incompetent has isolated them and delayed discovery of their elementary abilities. More importantly, this belief has obscured the evidence for higher perception, telepathic communication, and subtle forms of knowing which we have discovered in various forms of psychotherapy. With another big barrier down, perhaps parents and professionals will be able to meet real babies more often.

 

Annie Murphy Paul adds more and says, “Some of the most important learning we ever do happens before we’re born, while we’re still in the womb. Fetal origins is a scientific discipline that emerged just about two decades ago, and it’s based on the theory that our health and well-being throughout our lives is crucially affected by the nine months we spend in the womb. Now this theory was of more than just intellectual interest to me. I was myself pregnant while I was doing the research for the book. And one of the most fascinating insights I took from this work is that we’re all learning about the world even before we enter it.

“First of all, they learn the sound of their mothers’ voices. Because sounds from the outside world have to travel through the mother’s abdominal tissue and through the amniotic fluid that surrounds the fetus, the voices fetuses hear, starting around the fourth month of gestation, are muted and muffled. One researcher says that they probably sound a lot like the the voice of Charlie Brown’s teacher in the old “Peanuts” cartoon. But the pregnant woman’s own voice reverberates through her body, reaching the fetus much more readily. And because the fetus is with her all the time, it hears her voice a lot. Once the baby’s born, it recognizes her voice and it prefers listening to her voice over anyone else’s.

“But it’s not just sounds that fetuses are learning about in utero. It’s also tastes and smells. By seven months of gestation, the fetus’ taste buds are fully developed, and its olfactory receptors, which allow it to smell, are functioning. The flavors of the food a pregnant woman eats find their way into the amniotic fluid, which is continuously swallowed by the fetus. Babies seem to remember and prefer these tastes once they’re out in the world. In one experiment, a group of pregnant women was asked to drink a lot of carrot juice during their third trimester of pregnancy, while another group of pregnant women drank only water. Six months later, the women’s infants were offered cereal mixed with carrot juice, and their facial expressions were observed while they ate it. The offspring of the carrot juice drinking women ate more carrot-flavored cereal, and from the looks of it, they seemed to enjoy it more.

“Much of what a pregnant woman encounters in her daily life — the air she breathes, the food and drink she consumes, the chemicals she’s exposed to, even the emotions she feels — are shared in some fashion with her fetus. They make up a mix of influences as individual and idiosyncratic as the woman herself. The fetus incorporates these offerings into its own body, makes them part of its flesh and blood. And often it does something more. It treats these maternal contributions as information, as what I like to call biological postcards from the world outside.

”

Why would undernutrition in the womb result in disease later? One explanation is that fetuses are making the best of a bad situation. When food is scarce, they divert nutrients towards the really critical organ, the brain, and away from other organs like the heart and liver. This keeps the fetus alive in the short-term, but the bill comes due later on in life when those other organs, deprived early on, become more susceptible to disease.

12:05 But that may not be all that’s going on. It seems that fetuses are taking cues from the intrauterine environment and tailoring their physiology accordingly. They’re preparing themselves for the kind of world they will encounter on the other side of the womb. The fetus adjusts its metabolism and other physiological processes in anticipation of the environment that awaits it. And the basis of the fetus’ prediction is what its mother eats. The meals a pregnant woman consumes constitute a kind of story, a fairy tale of abundance or a grim chronicle of deprivation. This story imparts information that the fetus uses to organize its body and its systems — an adaptation to prevailing circumstances that facilitates its future survival. Faced with severely limited resources, a smaller-sized child with reduced energy requirements will, in fact, have a better chance of living to adulthood.”

An overwhelming number of studies prove that your baby’s brain is not a blank slate! While in utero your unborn baby is feeling, learning and remembering.

What matters most seems to be how you feel toward your baby when you are pregnant.

Dr. Thomas Verny speaks of a newborn baby who turned his head away in rejection to his mothers breast although it was offered, but breastfed willingly from a stranger with no problem. The mother admitted that from the start she didn’t want to be pregnant or have a baby. Wow, powerful illustration of the point! Love and nurture your baby even in utero.

Also, hormones related to anxiety and stress transfers into your bloodstream and can even affect your fetus. By trying to maintain a calm attitude during pregnancy you will be doing yourself a favor and protecting your baby from these negative emotions.

It seems that “extreme maternal distress” can even have physical consequences such as increased risk of prematurity and low birth weight. This is important to remember when pregnancy hormones heighten the emotions you feel.

 

The important role of the father has to be mentioned too. It has been said that “the best gift a child can receive is a father who loves its mother”. A sensitive, gentle and loving father will care for mom and baby physically and emotionally resulting in your health and happiness, and by extension – your unborn baby’s.

Finally, don’t forget the reminder to get enough rest. When I am physically tired I’m an emotional wreck!

So, even though this is the most quiet he will ever be, baby in womb is taking it all in. Your parental attachment, reading and talking to him affectionately – even music in the womb affects your baby’s well being.

Your unborn baby is already listening, observing and remembering. No matter what your schedule will demand of you after his birth, you are now with him 24/7. Cherish this time during your pregnancy and make it count for both of you!

For Further Study

The Death of “Infantile Amnesia” – The chief architects of the demise of “infantile amnesia” have been Patricia Bauer, Carolyn Rovee-Collier, and Andrew Meltzoff. Their work and the work of other contributors are listed here to allow for further study of the subject in depth.

Bauer, P. and Mandler, J. M. (1989), One thing follows another: Effects of temporal structure on 1- to 2-year-olds’ recall of events. Developmental Psychology, 25(2), 197-206.

Bauer, P. J. and Mandler, J. (1992), Putting the horse before the cart: The use of temporal order in recall of events by one-year-old children. Developmental Psychology, 28(3), 441-452.

Bauer, P. J. and Wewerka, S. S. (1995), One- to two-year-olds’ recall of events: The more expressed, the more impressed. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 59(3), 475-496.

Bauer, P. J. (1996), What do infants recall of their lives? Memory for specific events by one- to two-year-olds, American Psychologist, 51 (1), 29-41.

Drummey, A. B. and Newcombe, N. (91995), Remembering versus knowing the past: Children’s explicit and implicit memories for pictures. Journal Experimental Child Psychology, 59(3), 549-565

Hayne, H. and Findlay, N. (1995), Contextual control of memory retrieval in infancy: Evidence for associative priming. Infant Behavior and Development, 18, 195-207.

Hayne, H. and Rovee-Collier (1995), The organization of reactivated memory infancy. Child Development, 66(3), 893-906.

Mandler, J. M. and McDonough, L. (1995), Long-term recall of event sequences in infancy. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 59(3), 457-474.

Meltzoff, A. N. (1988), Imitation of televised models by infants. Child Development, 59, 1221-1229.

Meltzoff, A. N. (1995), What infant memory tells us about infantile amnesia: Long-term recall and deferred imitation. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 59, 497-515.

Meltzoff, A. N. and Gopnik, A. (1997), Words, Thoughts and Theories, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Peterson, C. and Bell, M. (1996), Children’s memory for traumatic injury. Child Development, 67(6), 3045-3070.

Rovee-Collier, C. and Fagan, J. (1981), The retrieval of memory in early infancy. In L. Lipsitt, (Ed.), Advances in infancy research, volume 1. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.

Rovee-Collier, C. and Lipsitt, L. (1982), Learning, adaptation, and memory in the newborn. In P. Stratton (Ed.) Psychobiology of the human newborn (pp. 147-190). New York: Wiley.

Rovee-Collier, C. (1987), Learning and memory in infancy. In J. D. Osofsky(Ed.), Handbook of infant development (2nd ed.) (pp. 98-148). New York: Wiley.

Rovee-Collier, C. and Hayne, H. (1987), Reactivation of infant memory: Implications for cognitive development. In H. Reese (Ed.), Advances in Child Development and Behavior, 20, 185-238.

Rovee-Collier, C. (1989), The joy of kicking: Memories, motives, and mobiles. In Solomon and others (Eds.), Memory: Interdisciplinary approaches, 151-180. New York: Springer.

Rovee-Collier, C. (1996), Shifting the focus from what to why, Infant Behavior and Development, 19(4), 385-400.

01/01/99

Fatherhood At Its Best

By Belden Johnson

A man loving himself and his future children enough to heal himself of his past wounds before he chooses a woman to conceive with.

A man nourishing himself by choosing a good woman and committing to a consciously-loving relationship into which to warmly welcome wished-for children.

A man nourishing his woman by speaking total truth, by taking 100% responsibility for his reality, by supporting her highest good as well as his own, by co-creating equally with her the safe nest of home and family.

A man who tells his 8-month pregnant wife how beautiful she is.

A man who creates lullabies to sing to his baby in the womb.

A man who also wants a home birth with a midwife and is completely present during the labor and delivery.

A man who protects children, male and female, from genital mutilation and sexual abuse.

A man who chooses to work half-time so he can parent half-time.

A man who changes all the diapers.

A man who dispenses with diapers and becomes the Permanent Pooper Scooper for as many years as it takes.

A man who loves skin-to-skin contact with his babies.

A man who welcomes a family bed.

A man who carries his baby in a Snuggli or a Gerry-pack.

A man who plays the piano with one hand while holding his baby with the other.

A man who kills his television and reads his children stories.

A man who wrestles with his children and always lets them win.

A man who coaches coed sports teams for his children and, when they ask who won, tells them that whoever had fun won.

A man who creates an alternative schooling for children who need it.

A man who will gladly teach and gladly learn.

A man who listens.

A man who says it’s okay to cry, or be afraid, or angry, or excited.

A man who can cry, be afraid, and be angry without violence or blaming.

A man who knows that he is the caretaker of Divine Souls who come “trailing clouds of glory” from God who is their home.

A man who celebrates his children’s differences from him and encourages them to become whoever and whatever they wish to become.

A man who, when the time comes, can let the birds fly the nest and bless them on their way out into the global family.

A man who fathers all children and weeps for the fatherless.

These images are true and real. Such fathers are now among us.

Bless them and their fatherhood!

* Report of the Fatherhood Vision Circle, Ninth International Congress of APPPAH, San Francisco, California Dec.6, 1999. You can reach Belden Johnson at johnson@gv.net.

Bonding Period

Column Editor’s Note: We gratefully acknowledge anthropologist Robbie Davis-Floyd for this contribution to The Powerful Parent-Infant Connection. It is from her path-breaking book, Birth as an American Rite of Passage (University of California Press, 1992). “Bonding Period” is a portion from the chapter “Messages” designed for the web by Ed Goldberg. The full chapter is at birthscene/messages. This article contains an in-depth discussion of the work of bonding pioneers Marshall Klaus and John Kennell as well as an overview of the concept of a “sensitive period” after birth. For more information about her ideas and writings, see her illuminating website.

Description and Official Rationale

There is no mention of bonding in the 984 pages of Williams Obstetrics, and only one short paragraph about “rooming-in” (1989:243). Nevertheless, most of the women in my study were handed their babies in the delivery room so that they could experience a short “bonding period,” usually after the babies had been washed, weighed, wrapped, and given their shots and their eye drops, but sometimes immediately after the birth. Bonding became part of normal birth routine in many hospitals due to the combined efforts of La Leche League and other childbirth activists, and to the concerted pleas of two pediatricians, Marshall Klaus and John Kennell. In Parent-Infant Bonding, first published in 1976, Klaus and Kennell point out the existence of a “sensitive period” immediately after birth during which maternal-infant attachment seems to occur much more readily than if mother and child are separated after the birth, as used to be standard hospital practice: “We believe that there is strong evidence that at least 30-60 minutes of early contact in privacy should be provided for every parent and infant to enhance the bonding experience” (Klaus and Kennell 1982:56).

Physiological Effects

Some researchers believe that there are no physiological effects of early bonding, that it is in fact a “scientific fiction” (Eyer 1992). On the other hand, proponents of bonding suggest that the physiological benefits of early “bonding” may be numerous. These potential benefits are eloquently summarized by Wenda Trevathan, who provides an exhaustive analysis of bonding research in Human Birth: An Evolutionary Perspective (1987:193-220):

Touching and massaging the infant stimulates breathing, provides warmth, and serves to rub the fatty vernix caseosa into the skin, which may prevent dehydration. If she holds it over her heart, on the left side of her body, the mother may be quieting the infant with the rhythmic beat that was an important part of its intrauterine environment. Holding it on the left may also facilitate eye contact, in that most infants prefer to turn their heads and look to the right….The infant may lick, nuzzle, or even suckle the mother’s breast in the immediate postpartum period. Nipple contact stimulates release of oxytocin into her bloodstream, which results in uterine contractions, expulsion of the placenta, and inhibition of postpartum bleeding. The colostrum that the infant ingests provides immunological protection and is the only natural source of Vitamin K, a substance essential for normal clotting of blood, necessary, for example, for preventing hemorrhage at the site of the umbilical cord. In addition, this early suckling may enhance later breastfeeding success.

Other benefits may possibly include growth of healthy maternal bacteria in the infant’s system, instead of the hospital bacteria she would have absorbed in the nursery (where strep and other bacterial epidemics are frequent occurrences), and “entrainment” of the bodily rhythms of mother and baby:

Detailed studies (Condon and Sander 1974) of the amazing behavioral capacities of the normal neonate have shown that the infant sees, hears and moves in rhythm to his mother’s voice in the first minutes and hours of life, resulting in a beautiful linking of the reactions of the two and a synchronized “dance” between the mother and the infant (Klaus and Kennell 1982:63).

Klaus and Kennell also stress that fathers who were observed interacting with their newborn infants went through the same sort of exploratory and synchronizing process as the mothers. Benefits to the infant of early bonding with parents involve taking advantage of the “quiet-alert state,” relatively rare in the first few days of life, which most normal newborns remain in for about 43 minutes immediately after birth, and in which rapid learning takes place. (Marshall Klaus postulates an evolutionary advantage to mothers and babies utilizing this period to get to know each other immediately after birth [personal communication], as does Trevathan [1987: 214-235].

Over the longer term, and more controversially, Klaus and Kennell postulate the value of uninterrupted bonding for the mother’s integration of her “mental picture” of the baby with the real child; they hypothesize an increased incidence of child abuse if such integration does not take place (1982:66-67). (The mental images held by mothers who batter their infants are often radically different in appearance and behavior from the actual child.) Long-term psychological benefits may include increased ease of parent-child relationships (O’Connor et al. 1978, 1980; Siegel 1982). There is some evidence to indicate that child abuse is statistically slightly more likely to occur when no opportunity for early bonding is provided, although good data are very difficult to procure. A well-controlled study of 301 mothers and babies (O’Connor et al. 1980) found a significantly decreased incidence of child abuse and neglect and parenting disorders among mothers who received 12 extra hours of contact with their newborns during the first two days after delivery. But it is important to note that other researchers have taken great issue with the research methods used in such studies (Amighi 1990; Eyer 1992; Lamb et al. 1985; Tronick et al. 1985, 1987). In fact, serious methodological problems with most of the bonding studies done to date have rendered them inconclusive in their attempts to demonstrate any long-term results of early bonding or of early maternal-infant separation (Laughlin 1990:43; Trevathan 1987:212).

Addressing earlier research on mammalian bonding behavior that seemed to indicate the biological necessity of immediate attachment, Trevathan concludes that

extremely rapid bond formation, such as has been described for goats and sheep, is “unnecessary” unless there is a good chance that the young will be mixed with others in the first few minutes or hours after birth. This is…certainly not the case for higher primates and human beings who live in groups too small for synchronous deliveries to be common and who have a level of awareness that would preclude great confusion over individual indentity during the postpartum period. Thus it is untenable to argue for a rapidly forming bond in most mammalian species including our own….[but] a strong and specific bond must ultimately form so that the mother is motivated to provide the high level of care needed by the helpless infant. Such attachment and motivation can develop in an adoptive mother as well, so neither the experience of parturition nor close biological relatedness is necessary for a strong mother-infant bond in human beings.

-Trevathan (1987:202)

Trevathan also notes that there are unusually high levels of endorphins present in mothers and infants during and immediately after delivery (1987:204); Odent (1984) suggests that these natural opiates contribute to maternal-infant bonding. Other researchers have also suggested that various hormones play roles in the maternal-infant attachment process, but, as Trevathan again points out, “Thousands of cesarean-delivered, bottle-feeding, and/or adoptive mothers offer proof of the ability of maternal solicitude to develop in the absence of hormonal precursors” (1987:205).

Women’s Responses

Jack helped cut the cord, and they gave the baby to me right away and never took him away from me. They wrapped him up and put him on my stomach and–they did not put the drops in his eyes immediately. He looked at me…I do feel that this baby has good eye contact with me. And I wonder if it’s because we looked into each other’s eyes for several minutes before the drops were put into his eyes. You know, before they get all blurry. I think that does make a difference.

-July Sanders

I had herpes, and they whisked the baby away to intensive care for observation and wouldn’t even let me touch him for three whole days. I grieved. I felt that he had died. Finally on the third day I went to the nursery and demanded him. But I felt very little when I got him. I know it’s nonsensical, but my emotional feeling was that he had died, and this was someone else. I wanted desperately to love him, and I knew that nursing would be the fastest way to make up for the bonding I had missed, so I made myself nurse him and I hated it for a long time. When I would sit down to nurse him I would feel so impatient I could scream. It took months for me to feel that I was really his mother, and he was really my baby. Finally it did happen, but it was awful for a long time.

-Jean Johnson

The miracle of the birth was so fantastic that I think I was in awe of the whole experience. It was beautiful and I’ll never forget it or lose the powerful emotion of it. The fact that my husband was there made it even more wonderful and he feels closer to me and his son because he helped and shared in the whole event, and we held our baby together. I don’t think any couple should have to be apart during labor and delivery if they have an alternative. I think that because we were together my postpartum depression has always been instead postpartum ecstasy and all my tears those of joy.

-Carmen Fisher, from her Lamaze story-report

They put the baby on my tummy but they told me not to touch it. They didn’t want my hands down anywhere near there….then they took it away, and I just turned off like a clam. It was awful….I didn’t want to have anything to do with it….I finally told my mother–she was the only one I felt I could admit it to–I just came out and told her that I just wanted to give it away. It sounds terrible but it was an honest feeling. It was six weeks before I felt like I really loved him….And now I wouldn’t part with him–he’s great. Well and the next time–it was really weird. I put my hand down on him and I didn’t expect to feel that way, I thought well it won’t be as bad as last time but you know it might take some time to get to love him. But the second he came out, they put him on my skin and I reached down and I felt him and it was something about having that sticky stuff on my fingers….it was like gosh, it’s almost like part of him or something– I don’t know what it was but it was really important to feel that waxy stuff….and they covered him up and he was crying and I made soothing sounds to him….and he started calming down and somehow that makes you feel–like he already knows you, he knows who you are–like animals or something, perhaps the smell of each other….but it was marvelous to hold him and I just touched him for a really long time and then they took him over but something had already happened. But it was much more than I ever felt or thought I would feel. Just instant love. And I can remember when they would bring him into the room afterwards–it didn’t diminish at all. It just always seemed to be there–I was crazy about him right from the beginning.

-Anne Mallone

Ritual Purposes

Throughout most of human history, mothers and babies have stayed together after birth. 12 It would seem that today’s “bonding period” might simply represent a commonsensical return to a formerly universal human practice, but few human customs are that straightforward. Although birthing women are no longer routinely put to sleep, institutional interests are still better served when mothers and babies are separated (see below), so general acceptance of the importance of a bonding period has been far from automatic.

Since the original research on bonding in the 1970s, a great deal of controversy has erupted over the long-term effects of this simple practice. Many medical personnel, and many mothers, felt that Klaus and Kennell were “way off base” to suggest that when mothers missed this “sensitive period,” their relationships with their babies had somehow been impaired. Yet proponents of bonding theory have consistently stressed that, even if the initial contact is not experienced, long-term attachment can and usually does occur. A primary goal of the publications by these two pediatricians was to eliminate (1) the practice of denying new parents of premature babies access to intensive care units; (2) the whisking away of all babies to the nursery immediately after birth; (3) the practice of keeping parents and even healthy newborns separated for hours after birth. All these were standard procedure in most American hospitals before the research of Klaus and Kennell on the attachment process–and that of many others–gained such wide recognition. Their point has been that this initial contact in the sensitive period facilitates, but is not essential to, the development of a strong maternal-infant attachment:

Some misinterpretations of studies of parent-to-infant attachment may have resulted from a too literal acceptance of the word bonding and so have suggested that the speed of this reaction resembles that of epoxy materials….The human is highly adaptable, and there are many fail-safe routes to attachment. Sadly, some parents who missed the bonding experience have felt that all was lost for their future relationship. This was (and is) completely incorrect.

-Kennell and Klaus 1989:281

Social scientists Arney and Martin present interpretations of bonding that deplore its ideological underpinnings. Arney feels that bonding, “like so many other ideologies that pose as social theories, turns social issues into individuals’ problems” because it “lends legitimacy to the notion that women are the only appropriate attendants for children” and so justifies keeping women at home (1982:171).

Martin suggests that the focus on bonding diverts our attention from how the whole process of birth has been sundered by the application of the production metaphor. To put it baldly, if a worker feels lack of involvement with a product when she does not feel she made it and when her work is regimented and controlled, think how a woman would feel if in her view her baby’s birth was taken away from her by the exertion of control over her body? Surely restoring contact between mothers and babies immediately after birth could not restore automatically a sense of engrossment with the baby when the process of birth has been so deeply interrupted. (1987:86)

Yet the statements of the women in my study indicate that it can and often does restore such a sense–perhaps in part because that sense is not new. Birthing mothers–and fathers–have been “bonding” with their babies for months before birth in myriad ways. The strength of this prenatal bond is indicated by the devastation both parents can experience when they miscarry or choose to abort:

For two weeks, Mike and I breathed as one person. His distress, loss and concern were never one whit less than my own. But we were sometimes upset and angered by unconscious cultural attitudes which precluded acknowledgment of his loss. He was expected to “cope,” while I was nurtured through my “need.” We’ve struggled for male responsibility in birth control, sexual mutuality, childbirth and childrearing, and I think we need to acknlowledge that those men who do engage in such transformed practices have mourning rights during a pregnancy loss as well. And yet, having spent fifteen years arguing against biological determinism in my intellectual and political life, I’m compelled to recognize the material reality of this experience. Because it happened in my body, a woman’s body, I recovered much more slowly than Mike did. By whatever mysterious process, he was able to damp back the pain and throw himself back into work after several weeks. For me, it took months. As long as I had the 14 pounds of pregnancy weight to lose, as long as my aching breasts, filled with milk, couldn’t squeeze into bras, as long as my tummy muscles protruded, I was confronted with the physical reality of being post-pregnant, without a child. Mike’s support seemed inadequate. I was in deep mourning while he seemed distant and cured.

-Rapp 1984:323

The intensity of grief Rapp experienced–biological, psychological, and social–is mirrored by the intensity of joy–biological, psychological and social–that parents experience when they hold their newborn babies. Marshall Klaus reports that in the early work on bonding that he and others carried out:

We put the mother, when she was ready, in a private room after the birth with plenty of heat provided. There she spent uninterrupted time alone with the baby. We found from studying the videotapes we made that the mother’s behavior when alone with the baby differed radically from her behavior when handed the baby in a crowded and busy delivery room for “bonding.” For example, on the videos we saw lots of mothers gazing at their babies and saying, “Look into my eyes,” which we did not observe them doing in the delivery room. The 10-minute bonding period was the result of an AMA meeting in the 1970s to which we were not invited. It was never our intention to institutionalize 10 minutes–the whole thing very quickly got taken out of our hands. (personal communication).

As Klaus indicates, the routinization of “here’s your baby–now bond!” demonstrates the rapid ideological co-option of attachment theory by institutional interests: it directly conveys the message that society gives the baby (produced by its technology) to the mother. At the same time, the handing of the baby to the mother constitutes a powerful ritual acknowledgment on the part of society that she is now a mother, that her transformation is complete: that the child she carried, nurtured, and loved inside her for so long is now in physical union with her in a new and thrilling way. As the statements of the women in my study and Rapp’s eloquent testimony make clear, there are emotions involved in the “bonding” process that are simply not co-optable. Even if bonding as ideology serves patriarchy (Arney 1982) or the economic interests of the hospital (Eyer 1992), or fails to redress the wounds of the baby’s technological production (Martin 1987), bonding as experience offers profound joy and meaning to mothers, fathers, and babies.

Immediately after birth, the mother is still physically and psychologically at her most open. Her baby constitutes for her a powerful symbol of her motherhood, her individuality, her new family, the beauty and wonder of nature, and the perfection of her own body and her procreative powers. To hold, touch, gaze at her newborn unhindered is to internalize these messages, to incorporate her newborn through all her sensory channels into the transformed identity with which the mother will emerge from her initiation experience. Often this bonding experience is powerful and positive enough to entirely override, in the mother’s conscious perception of her birth experience, any negative feelings of powerlessness, humiliation, or pain she may have been experiencing before her baby’s birth.

The presence of the father at these very special moments of highest affectivity ensures that he too will be incorporated into the mother’s new sense of her identity, and she and the baby into his. True bonding, when it is allowed to occur in the hospital, conveys an extremely potent message of the integrity and worth of the family in relation to science, technology, patriarchy, and institutions–a message so powerful that it will often override all others in both parents’ memories of their birth. Given the perceived threats to the American family as the fundamental social unit posed by the high divorce rate, it would seem to be in society’s interest to foster this process, send this message. As with the routinization of father’s presence in the delivery room, routine bonding, insofar as it strengthens the beleaguered American family, strengthens society as well.

Nevertheless, some recent research that denies anything special about the period immediately after birth (Lamb 1982, 1983; Lamb and Hwang 1982; Myers 1984) is now being used to undo the work of the 1970s, so that in some hospitals that used routinely to provide such a period of togetherness, the baby is once again whisked away. The readiness of such institutions to do away with the bonding period seems to reflect an acknowledgment of its symbolic and psychological mystique and power. As I stated above, the symbolic ramifications of bonding are profound for both the mother and the father: all the efforts at conceptual separation of mother-machine from child-product made in hospital birth rituals can be completely undone in the mother’s psyche at that integrating contact. Time and again I heard women describe highly technocratic labor experiences that were alienating up until the moment of birth as “positive” and “wonderful” because of the intensity of the joy they experienced upon touching and gazing at their newborn babes.

See: Growing up to Love.

Do Children Exist Prior to Conception and Birth?

Elisabeth Hallett

See Elisabeth’s site and books at Light Hearts

Do our children really exist somehow before conception? And if they do, what are the patterns that bring us together as parent and child? Personally, I would love to believe that my children were destined for me and nobody else… that I was chosen as the ideal mother for this pair of wonder-kids. And indeed many stories of pre-birth communication do support the view that our children are predestined to be with us.

An Australian woman recently sent me her story. She had two daughters, and didn’t plan to bear any more children; her husband had undergone a vasectomy following the second girl’s arrival. But six years later, the mother had a vision at the edge of sleep. Three beings in luminous robes presented her with a beautiful baby boy and told her that she was ready to have her “next child,” and that this child awaited her. The message and vision were compelling enough to lead to a vasectomy reversal-and the birth of a baby boy the following year.

The stories in last month’s column (“Trailed By A Cherub”) suggest there are persevering souls who are determined to join their destined parents. But are these arrangements hard and fast? Some experiences point to a certain creative flexibility at play in the pre-conception world. For example, a four-year-old girl told her mother that before she was born, she and Jesus used to sit together while she decided whether to be a boy in one family or a girl in another. “She said she decided at the last minute to come to us as a girl,” the mother reports, “and then she and Jesus laughed and went off to play till it was time to go.” It may not be hard evidence, but it’s thought-provoking!

When parents-to-be experience a persistent “visitor,” there is sometimes the suggestion of a time limit-a window of opportunity. Patricia was fearful of becoming pregnant, although she had powerful dreams of a little boy for over a year. While wide awake one day, she finally heard a clear message that this was her last chance to bear this child, as he had to “move on.” Move on to where? Perhaps to another prospective family?

Sharon was the mother of two small boys when she wrote, “As Daniel is getting older, we think often about whether or not we will give birth to another child. I still feel the presence of a little one ‘waiting in the wings,’ a little blond boy.” After a year of uncertainty, Sharon decided against having another child. But she mused, “I have a question as to what happens to these little guys who seem to have such a strong spirit, when you say ‘no’ to their birth?”

In researching my book “Soul Trek,” I occasionally encountered a situation where a woman felt uncomfortably pressured by the sense of “someone wanting to be born.” In one such case, a mother already had three children but was reluctantly preparing to conceive another boy whose presence she felt around her. “I’m pretty resigned that I will do it,” she wrote, “because I don’t want to get to the other side and meet this person who will tell me that I just didn’t want him to come.”

True, there are stories of pre-birth experiences that seem to suggest we’re duty-bound to bear the children appointed to us by destiny or a higher power. But other stories imply more of a give and take, a process of mutual choosing with freedom on both sides-potential parent and possible child. Such accounts can provide creative ideas for entering into this kind of conversation.

APPPAH member Mary Knight (author of “Love Letters Before Birth and Beyond”) shares her own experience. “For years, I’ve felt a little girl presence waiting patiently ‘in the ethers.’ She appears in my mind’s eye as having dark, black curly hair and brown eyes. When I mentioned her to some writer friends many years ago, one of them suggested that perhaps I was imagining a character in a future novel. In the last few years, her presence has been seen by two psychics on two different occasions-unsolicited. The last one said that if I didn’t bring her in through my body that she’d probably find another way to me-which is what I’ve told her she needs to do.

“Still, there’s a pull… and a little guilt that I’m not complying. However, I know that she wants it to be a free choice for all of us, and I just can’t bring myself to it. There is a sense of loss with this choice. I know that I am missing a precious gift. I think I should probably create and perform a ritual in which we acknowledge letting go of each other. I will promise to be ‘looking for her’ in other places throughout my life.”

A mother of two found that the persistent visits of a potential child helped her to clarify her life’s direction. “About six months after my second child was born, I became aware of another female being who wanted to be born to us. She would always appear off to my upper right consciousness and even though I love babies and nurturing, I knew having another baby would be very hard for me. I sent those messages to her with love whenever she appeared.

“I can’t remember when she stopped visiting me; perhaps four to six months later. I wanted to get back into my music and I have been able to do that now. I feel so vitalized, so excited about what I am doing now that a baby would be quite an adjustment for me. I feel that she hung around a respectable amount of time, giving me time to really think about my priorities, yet not pressuring me in any way; I believe she stopped appearing when I made a firm commitment to pursue my music again.”

Some accounts even offer glimpses of the alternate routes a child may take, when the answer turns out to be “no.” Anne lives in a community of families with shared values. Early in their marriage, she and her husband decided to remain childless. “Around the time that the whole question got settled,” she recalls, “I became aware that someone was hovering around me quite often, hoping that she could be born to us. One day, as I was walking through the woods, the presence became much stronger than usual and it was almost as if I could see her-for it was clearly now a she. It would be an exaggeration to say that it was a vision of any kind. It was more like a clear picture in my mind. She wasn’t pretty, or even cute in the usual sense. But she was very interesting looking. She had lots of character in her face, and dynamic greenish eyes, a largish nose, dark curly hair. Very mischievous and looking very strong willed.

“I spoke to her definitely, telling her that I could see she would be great fun to be with and it would no doubt be a joy to be her mother. But it really wasn’t in the plan for us to have any children at all. So I suggested to her that there were many other fine families around the community that she could join. And if there was any particular reason she wanted to know us, we could still be part of her life. Shortly after this, I didn’t feel her around any more.

“Recently, it occurred to me that a certain girl in our community may be the same soul. Not because I have any particular affinity with her, but because she resembles the girl I saw in my mind and also because the personality she is apparently exhibiting-which is quite forceful and unusual-reminds me of the child that I met in my mind.”

A prominent psychologist has questioned the value of sharing personal stories that suggest pre-birth communication. He asks, “How much of this is wishful thinking or fantasy, combined with a modicum of intuition, and a certain level of inner processing that provides images and inner dialogue?” His point is well taken and sounds a valid note of caution; yet I’m persuaded the subject is worth pursuing in spite of such factors. Our colleague goes on to say, “The main question is what can be meaningfully learned from all of this?”

Perhaps to say “we learn” is not quite right. These stories can change us. They free the imagination to explore what was once an absolute void before the beginning of life. They allow us to guess at possible patterns in the mystery of relationships. On this frontier, our vision of reality may “shapeshift”.

More intimately, they’ve changed the way I see my children, bringing a certain grace of gratefulness. From time to time I find myself thinking — even saying aloud-“Thank you for coming to our family.” The possibility that they might as easily have joined some other set of parents is a humbling one. Consider the surprising conversation with her little boy that one mother recalls:

“When Brett was between three and four years old, he was very angry with me one day. He said, ‘I hate you, Mommy. You weren’t even my first choice for a Mommy.’ I somehow managed to stay centered and asked, ‘Who was your first choice?’

“It was a woman from the Philippines but she was already taken.”

Editor’s Note: Special thanks to Mary Knight for her story.

For more information about her book Love Letters: Before Birth and Beyond, email:singleeyeo@aol.com

Carol Bowman for a short quote from her message board at Children’s Past Lives; contributors to Soul Trek, and Light Hearts.

Please join in exploring this frontier. If you have had experiences that suggest communication before conception or before birth, please consider sharing them through future installments of this column.

You can reach the editor by email or write to Elisabeth Hallett, P.O. Box 705, Hamilton, MT 59840

Brief Book Review

Sarah Hinze: Coming From the Light: Spiritual Accounts of Life Before Life (Simon & Schuster, 1997).

It is often said that when the time is ripe for a new idea, it will occur to several people at once.

Unknown to each other, Sarah Hinze and I both gathered stories of pre-birth and pre-conception contacts over many years. Her book, initially published as Life Before Life, has been revised and reissued in a Pocket Books edition as Coming From the Light: Spiritual Accounts of Life Before Life (Simon & Schuster, 1997). The new edition is enhanced by an Afterword by Sarah’s husband, psychologist Brent Hinze, Ph.D., in which he draws comparisons between near-death and pre-birth experiences and analyzes the aspects of a “typical” pre-birth contact.

Sarah’s approach is deeply spiritual and reverent. She presents more than thirty inspiring personal stories from parents and adoptive parents, describing connections with their children before conception and during pregnancy (or the pre-adoption period). Sarah’s own experiences are perhaps the most remarkable of all, told in the moving first chapter. It opens with the words, “My interest in life before life is very personal. Before each of our nine children was born, I sensed that he or she was preparing to come to earth.”

Excerpts of this lovely book can be read online at Sarah’s website.

INVITATION: Please join in exploring the mysteries of communication before conception. If you have had such an experience, please consider sharing it here! You can contact me by e-mail at soultrek@montana.com or by letter: Elisabeth Hallett, Box 705, Hamilton MT 59840.

We Lived in Heaven – Sarah Hinze on Pre-Birth Experiences

For those who read my previous post on Roy Mills’ book about his memories of the premortal life, this post will be an exciting follow-up, with further information on individuals who have had distinct experiences with the premortal existence. After my father, whose name is also David Larsen, read the Mills post, he referred me to an individual he knows from IANDS (International Association for Near Death Studies) who specializes in “pre-birth experiences.” Her name is Sarah Hinze and she has done extensive research and writing on this phenomenon, focusing on collecting experiences from individuals who claim to have received communication from a child before he/she was born, or even before the child was even conceived.  Such experiences indicate that the child already exists in spirit long before his/her birth into the world, and that the “self” not only continues after this life, but also precedes it. In this post, I would like to give a brief overview of Sarah Hinze’s work.

Sarah’s research in this area began nearly twenty years ago, after she had a “pre-birth experience” (PBE) in the form of a communication from a child that she miscarried. Since then she has interviewed individuals and chronicled many of these types of communication from children before they are born. Her work has provided solid evidence that unborn children can warn, protect and enlighten us from the spirit realm. Most often these children appear to announce it is their time to be born. This communication can occur between the child and a parent, sibling, aunt, uncle, or grandparent, etc., as they come to warn, protect and enlighten through the veil.

According to Sarah’s website, www.sarahhinze.com or www.royalchild.com, there are several diverse ways in which such a communication can be received.

• During a Near Death Experience (NDE): there are many accounts of NDEs which describe a visit to the premortal realm where future children are contacted.
• Very vivid dreams: in which the individual sees and/or converses with a being that the individual knows has not yet been born but will be born in the future. Some cultures call this type of experience “announcing dreams”. These dreams are often extremely vivid and memorable.
• Visions: PBEr sees distinctly male or female form, various “ages”, variously attired, while awake; sometimes form is accompanied by glow or light, sometimes not; sometimes appears and/or disappears suddenly.
• Auditory: Experiencer hears a voiced message from or about the preborn. Often the voice is a child, gives its preferred name, announces that it needs to come to earth now, and/or refers to the parent as “father” or “mother”.
• Telepathy: Preborn beings witnessed by communication directly to the experiencer’s mind; telepathic or spiritual communication, as often described in NDEs.
• Sensory: An individual vividly senses an unseen presence hovering around them. Along with the presence can be a distinct feeling of urgency.

Other pre-birth accounts include: an individual being able to remember an escort who brought him/her to earth, individuals having flashbacks or being able to remember themselves or siblings in a prebirth/premortal state, children who will be adopted appearing to either the adoptive or biological parents to announce the situation that will take place, and other types of experiences.

The website also describes ten general aspects of the “typical” prebirth experience:

• Radiation of love: The preborn radiates a powerful love to the prebirth experiencer, similar to the love felt from the light in the NDE.
• Celestial light: The preborn may radiate, or appear in, a brilliant light that does not hurt the eyes and conveys extraordinary peace, similar to the light in the NDE.
• Thankful and eager to come to earth: The preborn is excited about earth life, views it as a growth opportunity, and is thankful that the parents are providing this opportunity. Yet there may be some fear of the unknown in facing the transition to earth life.
• Leaving a heavenly home: The preborn is eager to enter earth life, but expresses a degree of loss or apprehension at leaving the sanctuary of his heavenly home.
• A time to come to earth: The preborn often indicates that the time in which one comes to earth is assigned, as part of a divine timetable, so personalized growth experiences can be achieved.
• A unique mission: The preborn message conveys that each individual has special purposes or missions to accomplish during his specified time on earth.
• Protection/Warning: Some preborn appearances provide protection or warning to the recipient. (In the case studies reviewed, aid to the PBErs was provided by the preborn to prevent or recover from suicide attempts, abuse, rape, birth control, and abortion that would block the preborn’s conception and birth on earth.)
• Messages: Some preborn appearances provide messages about something the future parent(s) or others must do as part of their earth mission or to help the preborn.
• Escort to earth: Some preborns are brought to earth by escorts (just as some NDErs are escorted to the life after life).
• Deja vu: Some PBEs consist of memories or flashbacks of one’s pre-earth life.

In another section of the website, “PBE Accounts“, Sarah provides a few of the many prebirth stories that she has recorded. There are even a couple of accounts from celebrities. Here, for example, is an excerpt from John Denver’s experience when he and his wife were trying to adopt a child:

”Once we started processing the adoption papers, whenever I found a quiet moment in the day, including just before I got out of bed in the morning, I offered a prayer to this little spirit out there: ‘Whoever you are, wherever you are, I don’t know what you have to go through to get here and be with us, but we love you very much and can’t wait to be with you.’

“With all of those anticipations streaming through me, we came to New York. I had four sold out nights at Madison Square Garden and we were staying at the Sherry-Netherland. It was May 12, 1974, and that night I dreamed that three people in white robes came and gave me a little boy. We hadn’t specified either sex in our communication with the adoption agency, all we wanted was that the baby be healthy enough to live with us in the mountains. We were active people, we liked to be outside, and we wanted that for our baby as well. But in my dream, when the baby was put into my arms, I noticed that it was a boy-a dark-faced boy with round eyes and a bit of an overbite-and as I was holding him, he looked up, grabbed my thumb, and smiled.

“In the morning, I recounted the dream to Annie. Eleven days later, Zak was born. We didn’t see him then, but we were notified about his birth, and when he was about two months old we went up to Minnesota to the adoption agency to pick him up…

Anyway, we arrived at the agency. Zak was being flown up from the South. There were papers to be signed. There was also a little formal procedure to go through, designed to help adoptive parents deal with the anxiety of meeting their child.

“…This was where you were supposed to get your first glimpse of your baby. We had just been told that the young woman who was bringing Zak had been delayed and we were trying to keep from feeling disappointed, when the door at the far end of the hall opened and the woman appeared after all, with our child. Without a word, she came running down the hall and handed the baby to me. He had round eyes and this little bit of an overbite, and when I held him he smiled and grabbed my thumb. Zak was the child in my dream-exactly the same child! I recognized his face and I think he recognized mine. At least he looked at me in the most knowing way. Right there, dream and reality came together for me.”

Quoted From Take Me Home: An Autobiography by John Denver & Arthur Tobier, Harmony Books: New York, p.116

Another such experience was that of Richard Dreyfuss. In an interview with Barbara Walters on 20/20 after the Academy Awards in 1996, Dreyfuss revealed that a PBE was key to helping him overcome years of addiction to drugs and alcohol.

The interview revealed that Dreyfuss’ first marriage had fallen casualty to his troubled years, as had some great film roles. Over twenty years of addiction recycling had come and gone. The turning point occurred miraculously in a dark hour. Dreyfuss was hospitalized in an effort to detox him yet again from the grasp of drugs and alcohol. Hours passed. As he sobered all alone in the hospital room, there entered a three-year-old girl in a pink dress and shiny black patent leather shoes. She told him, “Daddy, I can’t come to you until you come to me. Please straighten out your life so I can come.” And she was gone.

But the pleading message of her haunting eyes was seared into Dreyfuss’ memory, a constant inspiration to reorder his life so that his daughter might come. With this sacred incentive he maintained sobriety, remarried, and prayed. Within three years a daughter was born to Dreyfuss and his wife — the same girl who had come to his hospital room.

I share these two stories because of the amazing fact that they are from two famous people who have shared these amazing prebirth experiences publicly. Sarah Hinze provides many more stories on her site.  Besides her website, Sarah has also written a number of books: Life before Life, Songs of the Morning Stars, The Castaways, We Lived in Heaven: Spiritual Accounts of Souls Coming to Earth, and Coming from the Light. More information about these inspiring volumes, including how you can order them, can be found here, here, and here.  I will look at these books in greater detail after I have been able to obtain and review them.

While I simply can’t do Sarah Hinze and her extensive research justice in this one post, I would like to conclude with some of the great historical information regarding belief in the premortal existence that she includes on her site, under “PBEs in History“:

Over 800 references to the pre-earth existence of mankind have been identified in Jewish and Christian sources from the time of Christ until the sixth century, A.D.   Early Hellenistic (Greek) writings also referred to belief in a pre-earth life. However, after the sixth century A.D., mention of a life before mortality virtually disappears from orthodox Jewish, Christian, and Greek writings (Hamerton-Kelley, R.G., Pre-Existence, Wisdom and the Son of Man in the New Testament, Cambridge University Press, 1973).

A premortal existence was discussed by such well known ancient philosophers as Plato, and Christian writers Origen of Alexandria and Justin Martyr. The writings of the ancient Jewish historian  Josephus and the Jewish theologian Philo (who claimed that everything he wrote agreed with the Pentateuch) show that belief in a premortal life was evident in Judaism until the 5th century, A.D., which in certain quarters held that the soul longs to return to that premortal existence after earth life (Judische Theologie, 212-228).

Until the sixth century A.D., early Christianity taught that we had a pre-earth life. Then the doctrine of a pre-existence was condemned by the council of Constantinople in A.D. 553. However, Hastings Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics reports the doctrine of a pre-existence was favored by Origen (the greatest of early church theologians), Justin Martyr, Augustine, Cyril of Jerusalem, Peirius, John of Jerusalem, Rufinius, Nemesius, and the Western Church generally until the time of Gregory the Great (article on pre-existence, p. 239).

Another such experience was that of Richard Dreyfuss. In an interview with Barbara Walters on 20/20 after the Academy Awards in 1996, Dreyfuss revealed that a PBE was key to helping him overcome years of addiction to drugs and alcohol.

The interview revealed that Dreyfuss’ first marriage had fallen casualty to his troubled years, as had some great film roles. Over twenty years of addiction recycling had come and gone. The turning point occurred miraculously in a dark hour. Dreyfuss was hospitalized in an effort to detox him yet again from the grasp of drugs and alcohol. Hours passed. As he sobered all alone in the hospital room, there entered a three-year-old girl in a pink dress and shiny black patent leather shoes. She told him, “Daddy, I can’t come to you until you come to me. Please straighten out your life so I can come.” And she was gone.

But the pleading message of her haunting eyes was seared into Dreyfuss’ memory, a constant inspiration to reorder his life so that his daughter might come. With this sacred incentive he maintained sobriety, remarried, and prayed. Within three years a daughter was born to Dreyfuss and his wife — the same girl who had come to his hospital room.

I share these two stories because of the amazing fact that they are from two famous people who have shared these amazing prebirth experiences publicly. Sarah Hinze provides many more stories on her site.  Besides her website, Sarah has also written a number of books: Life before Life, Songs of the Morning Stars, The Castaways, We Lived in Heaven: Spiritual Accounts of Souls Coming to Earth, and Coming from the Light. More information about these inspiring volumes, including how you can order them, can be found, here, and here.  I will look at these books in greater detail after I have been able to obtain and review them.

 

Adult Memories of Prebirth

Elisabeth Hallett

See Elisabeth’s site and books at Light Hearts

Today’s email brings a letter from a physician. After visiting my website devoted to pre-birth communication, he writes: “I wonder if you’re familiar with the teaching that the fetus does NOT have a nervous system suitable for either long term complex memory or any type of communications beyond the most basic protective reflexes. So I wonder how much of ‘pre-birth communications’ is wishful thinking?”

Luckily, one doesn’t have to go in a single dizzying leap from this view of the fetus to the possibility of pre-birth communication. We can go step by step, back through research uncovering evidence of mind and memory at an ever younger stage, until we arrive at the frontier of conception. And here we find cases of people who appear to remember events from before they were conceived. At this mind-stretching point, the capabilities of the fetal nervous system are no longer an issue. For example, one of my correspondents, a Brazilian gentleman, experienced an apparent pre-conception memory in his late sixties, while undergoing therapy with psychologist Renate Jost de Moraes. He describes it almost poetically.

“I saw myself floating in space, seeing my mother and father in their living room, quarreling on a subject of little importance. I could hear and understand all they said. As if they were influenced by me and by an ineffable light coming from above that illuminated us, their quarreling attitude changed and a look of love and tenderness appeared between them. Then I saw them walking side by side toward the bedroom, while I, taking the appearance of a transparent star of five points, like a bright jelly floating in space, gently conducted them to the bedroom, embracing their shoulders. Asked by the therapist why I did such a thing, I heard myself saying “to make what I do not have yet, my body!”

In an article on “The Expanding Boundaries of Memory” (1990), Dr. David Chamberlain presents examples from among his own clients. Ingrid, for instance, remembered her mother and father making love on a couch, before they were married. “The doorbell rang to announce that Grandmother and Aunt had come back from shopping when they weren’t supposed to.” The encounter sent shock waves through all present. Ingrid says, “Mother was beside herself. She knew she got pregnant. She was ashamed. She didn’t want to do it in the first place….She blamed me for her trouble.”

Such early memories, says Dr. Chamberlain, “present us with two interesting problems: 1) We run completely out of any physical material which might somehow be considered a basis for memory, and 2) We run into the very same quality of self-awareness, thoughtfulness, even virtue, that we have seen in all other memories regardless of age.” These memories have their counterpart in stories that suggest preconception communication, for there are parents who have sensed the presence of a mysterious “other” before the time when they conceived a child. “It was as if there was another person in the room,” one woman recalls. The presence can be quite impersonal, or it may impress the experiencer with definite qualities of feeling and personality. A mother writes: “I remember startling at the feeling that there was someone in the room with my husband and me. I clearly felt the impression of an adult male figure standing at our feet. I jerked up, almost expecting to see someone there. As I felt surrounded by great love, I almost felt it would be like Jesus standing there. Though I’m not religious in the traditional sense, still those figures and images from my Catholic upbringing carry much symbolism for me. To me, this feeling of Jesus was of the love of someone for us as we conceived our son.”

One couple were surprised by their simultaneous awareness of a presence. Jill describes the experience: “My fiancé and I were lying in bed a few months ago and were simply relaxing. We began kissing and were both inspired to move on to bigger and better activities. All of a sudden, I had the most beautiful, warm, and tingly feeling. I knew that I had felt a child, our child, in the room with us. I immediately stopped my fiancé and said, ‘If we make love right now, we are going to have a baby.’ I was surprised when he said, ‘I know.’ Jill adds that although it was amazing, “it wasn’t a foreign feeling at all. In fact, we both agreed that the feeling was familiar and totally unique at the same time. It was literally like a wash of a loving, powerful and familiar presence over us. From what we can determine in words, we felt very similar things and at the same time. At that moment, we chose to wait. Since then, we have talked about that spirit who visited us. We both agreed that it was a girl…”

For some potential parents, the presence conveys a sense of urgency, as if encouraging them to hurry up and conceive! Kim’s experience is especially interesting because she has a cardiac condition that makes pregnancy hazardous, and after two difficult (but successful) pregnancies, she did not intend to have any more children. However, one night she was awakened by “a very strong presence in our room.” She writes: “I described it as ‘light, joy and female.’ I woke my husband up and told him we needed to make love as this soul was there and wanted to be in our family. He told me to go back to sleep and reminded me that we couldn’t go through another pregnancy. We talked for about five minutes, me quite urgently as I had no doubt that this needed to happen. I told Gordy that if I didn’t get pregnant that night (which was not the usual time in my cycle to conceive), I would never think about having more children and I would understand this whole situation as an illusion. So we made love and we did conceive our third child that night! A daughter was born the following October, quite full of light and joy.”

A future father may be the one who gets the message, as in the following story: “One night, at two or three in the morning, Bruce awakened me and wanted to make love. He said it seemed like someone woke him up and told him to make love to me. We were both sleepy and groggy and we made love. This is so amazing to me, because we just don’t do this‹wake up in the middle of the night to make love‹never before, and not in the fourteen years since then! So it all felt sort of odd to us, but we went with it. It turns out that I conceived that night.”

Visions of light sometimes accompany the mysterious presence. Susan was told by her doctor during a routine checkup that she was at the perfect time of her cycle to conceive. She relates, “I went home that night prepared to seduce my husband and get pregnant with my child. Well, it was one of those days for him and off he went to sleep without having been ‘seduced.’ I prayed and meditated in the bed with him asleep, asking that if a spirit was out there that wanted to come into my body, please come to me. “The room was filled with miniature white lights dancing around. I was sitting up in the bed looking at the mirror of our dresser. I had a bowl of flowers on the dresser, and one particular light landed near these flowers and between candles I had lit. Then the whole end of the room became lit as if from a Hollywood Opening type of searchlight. The light started as a beam of many colors and kept going back and forth in an arc for at least an hour. Throughout the whole episode I felt such a presence in the room and just knew I would become pregnant with this being. I could feel a warmth and a playful presence. I conceived two days later. Now my daughter is nineteen months old and she IS the feeling of that spirit I saw dancing in the bedroom.”

Of course it’s easy (and probably for most people the preferred option) to dismiss each story as the product of wishful thinking. I have no doubt that wishful thinking and creative imagination do play a part in some percentage of these experiences. But what if a pre-conception memory is really what it seems to be? What if the presence in the bedroom is, in fact, a future child coming to take part in its own conception? When we take any one account seriously and try to imagine a reality that might “fit” such an experience, we confront a version of ourselves that extends beyond the limits of body and brain. It’s surprisingly difficult to get a “feel” for such a reality. Something in us seems to resist that mental shift, and keeps us stuck in our concepts. Who knows, maybe this is the very reason why events that don’t fit our standard view of reality seem to be multiplying. Maybe it’s time for our concepts to come unglued!

Announcement: I am preparing a new book on pre-birth communication, and welcome correspondence about experiences, including those of siblings, grandparents, adoptive parents, and others. Memories of pre-conception are also welcome! Your contributions to future installments of this column are invited as well. Please contact me by email at soultrek@montana.com or by snail mail: Elisabeth Hallett, Box 705, Hamilton MT 59840

Communicating with Your Unborn Child

Teresa Robertson, RN, CNM, MSN

Teresa’s website is at Birth Intuitive

Column Editor’s Note: It is my pleasure to introduce another pioneer in the field of pre-birth communication, Teresa Robertson, RN, CNM, MSN of Boulder, CO. Teresa has participated in about 1600 births and counsels with couples about conception and pregnancy. She teaches communication between parent and child, from before conception right through pregnancy to birth and babyhood. Christiane Northrup, author of Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom, has said, “I consider Teresa’s work the obstetrics of the future, which involve connecting with your baby before it is born and working in partnership with the baby’s consciousness.” Teresa’s contact information is: In Health Teresa Robertson RN,CNM, MS Intuitive Counselor 3011 N. Broadway, Suite 23 Boulder, CO, 80304, USA. Websites: www.BirthIntuitive.com www.LivingIntuitiveResources.com Email: tann@indra.com

Miracles occur when a woman and/or her family connects with their unborn child. From preconception through pregnancy and labor and birth, Eli and his parents created many miracles.

I first met Eli when his mom Suzanne came to work with me after experiencing two devastating first trimester miscarriages over a six month time period. These miscarriages made no sense to her because she could strongly feel the presence of a baby (Eli) wanting to be born, yet she kept miscarrying. During this first session, Suzanne was led through a visualization scan of her ovaries, tubes and uterus. In the midst of this exercise she discovered an unresolved issue occupying one of her ovaries. With Eli’s assistance, she released this issue and began to heal and to reclaim her ovary and her reproductive creative power.

Once again Suzanne easily conceived. When she was twenty weeks pregnant, she and her husband Steve felt that an ultrasound would help them to trust that everything was really going well with this pregnancy. When they both checked in and communicated this with Eli, he wasn’t happy about the idea. “Can’t you trust that I am perfect and okay?” he asked. Finally Suzanne and Steve negotiated a compromise with Eli. Their agreement included an exercise to ground and to place protection around Eli before the ultrasound would begin. “We got to the ultrasound appointment early so that we could do our grounding exercise. Before we could do this, however, we were ushered into the ultrasound room and the technician started the scan. Eli was so active that after fifteen minutes of this, the tech said we might need to come back. At that point Steve remembered that we hadn’t done the exercise we had promised Eli. He whispered this insight into my ear and reminded me to ground my body. The moment I grounded my body, Eli quieted down and the tech was then able to take his pictures for the radiologist.”

Although Eli’s story is dramatic, it is not unusual. Suzanne and Steve possess the same gifts and abilities as any other parent. What is special about their story, however, is that they had access to someone who could provide support, guidance and tools to facilitate their ability to communicate with their unborn son.

Communicating with our unborn children is everyone’s birthright and easily within our capability. Just as we are born with the organs which enable us to touch, feel, talk, listen, see and hear, we are also born with the ability to perceive, intuit, and to see what is unseen.

We are all born with a pineal gland, the physical structure which corresponds to intuition and clairvoyance- clear seeing and knowing. This gland, which is located behind our third eye area, serves as a bridge between our outside world and our inner knowing. It easily becomes stimulated by light or meditation, and releases important hormones which are responsible for brain and body growth and development, and very importantly, the hormones which govern fertility, pregnancy and birth (Speroff, L; Glass, R and Kase, N.

(1989) Clinical Gynecologic Endocrinology and Fertility Baltimore: Williams and Wilkens).

Over the past four years I have assisted and witnessed numerous women and their families connecting with their unborn children for the following reasons: to promote fertility and conception, to forge a connection in preparation for an adoption, to resolve a pregnancy loss including miscarriage, abortion, or the death of a baby, to increase bonding and connection during pregnancy, labor and birth, and to learn how to cooperatively communicate with their baby before he/she can physically speak. My goal and role in these sessions is to promote communication that is cooperative, empowering, loving, playful, and healing.

Included below is a simple exercise to assist you with connecting to the spirit of your unborn child. As you proceed with this exercise be aware that each of us receives intuitive information differently. Be open to what you are feeling, knowing, hearing, and seeing as you play with this exercise. Also remember, the more you employ this exercise the richer your experience will become.

Establishing the Connection

1. Take a deep breath as you ground your body. To ground, make an imaginary connection between the base of your spine as wide as your hips to the center of the earth. You may wish to put an X on your spine and an X at the center of the earth and connect them with an imaginary tree trunk, a waterfall, an anchor, or with any other imagery which you create.

2. Imagine an empty bubble outside of your body. It might be in front of your face, or in front of your heart. Ground this bubble (connect it to the center of the earth with its own grounding cord).

3. Now invite the spirit of your unborn child to fill this bubble. To facilitate this connection some parents will connect a tube or telescope from themselves to this bubble. For example a tube which leads from the baby’s grounded bubble to their own heart.

4. Be aware of what you notice, see, feel, hear or know about this bubble.

Beginning a Conversation

Now that you have grounded your body and set up your method of communication with your baby, you can begin your first conversation with your baby.

1. From the top of your crown chakra ( on the top of your head) create a gold ring which encapsulates a “hello-I see you.” Send that gold ring “hello” over to your unborn baby’s bubble. Notice what your baby’s reaction is to this hello. What happens to its bubble? Do the colors and/or images around your baby change? Does your body feel different?

2. Now ask your baby if he/she has anything to tell you. Again be aware of your body.

3. To close your conversation send a good-bye (in the same way you sent the hello) over to the baby’s bubble.

Journaling or art supplies can serve as concrete tools to integrate this experience for yourself. Remember, when you set the focus of your communicating with your unborn child in play and joy, you will receive much more information.

Enjoy!

Spiritual Versus Biological Paternity

Daisy M. Bates, more than any other outsider, understood the Broome District Aborigines. This gentle English woman pitched her camp and lived a nomadic lifestyle with the Aborigines for nearly forty years.(3) Bates discovered something unusual about the Aborigines: paternity is the responsibility of the spirit-child rather than the father’s sexual act. A man’s dream determines his fatherhood rather than his sperm. So firm was the spirit-child paradigm among Broome District Aborigines that no man acknowledged paternity unless he had met the spirit-child in his sleeping hours. In one instance, a husband accepted a child born to his wife during their five-year separation, thereby ignoring the lapsed time between intercourse and birth.

An anthropologist found parallel beliefs among Tiwi Aborigines. Larry, as a case in point, accepted his wife’s child as his own spiritual daughter upon returning after a two-year absence. Larry’s daughter had appeared to him in a dream during the couple’s separation. She touched him with a spear and asked, “Where is my mother?” Larry described how to find Dolly at Snake Bay.

One full moon night, upon Larry’s return to his wife Dolly, he walked along the beach cradling his wife’s infant in his arms. He was delighted with his wife and ecstatic about their newborn daughter, even though he was not the biological father. He sang to the baby about “the spirit land from which all people came and to which they return on death.”

Bates cites further reports of men who denied paternity even if the couple had never been apart. In such cases, the men did not have a spirit-child dream, or dreamed of a daughter, but their wives birthed sons or vice versa. In these cases, the mother must locate the “real” father who had the spirit-child dream.

Lost Visions

Aborigines reported fewer pre-conception dreams once Western religion, rationalism, and science began to spread throughout Australia. A number of subtle factors contributed to population decline of Aborigines, as Dr. Andreas Lommel discovered.(4) As part of the Frobenius Expedition in 1938, Lommel studied modern culture’s impact on Aborigines in the Kimberly Division of Northwestern Australia. The German ethnologist interviewed Ungarinyin, Worora, and Unambal Aborigines, including “civilized” Aborigines and those on the fringe of settlement, as well as the “untouched” who maintained their heritage.

To begin with, Aborigines who had been raised on missions and government stations knew little more about hunting kangaroos with spears or collecting edible roots than a typical white man. These stock boys, farm-hands, and laborers had adopted European dress and preserved only fragments of their native language. These assimilated men differed from their forefathers in another significant way. They were losing the ability to have “proper” spirit-child dreams. Birth rates were decreasing. As a result, despite excellent economic and sanitary conditions, only one-tenth of the two hundred members of the Worora in the Kunmunja Mission was under twenty, typical of a population in decline.

A missionary’s advice, “Increase sexual contact with your wives,” fell upon deaf ears. The Worora knew that conception depends upon a spirit-child’s will to be born. The physical sex act was “more or less insignificant,” even though the men had been educated about male sperm.

In Lommel’s discussions with the Aborigines, the men offered one reason for fewer spirit-child dreams: “Sleep must not be too heavy.” The dreamer must remain alert and sensitive, even as the body rests. When a man dreams like that, the spirit-child’s name enters his heart; then, it “goes into his head” and the man becomes “fully conscious” of it. In essence, the Aborigines attributed proper dreams to a duality of consciousness event, an alert mind and resting body — comparable to conscious dreams as defined by yogis who pursue a meditative life-style. The Aborigines began to accumulate modern stress once they left the tranquil, silent life of the bush where they had practiced sacred ceremonies and had time to contemplate and meditate.

Lommel spoke to Aborigines who hid in the back country away from white men. The lifestyle of the Unambal, as a prime case, remained unchanged. Kangaroos were abundant and economic conditions remained favorable. The government prohibited visiting adventurers, traders, and settlers from entering Unambal territory.

Nevertheless, the Unambal reported falling birth rates. And instead of spirit-child dreams, they encountered nightmares. Even though the Unambal had never seen a white man, they were irritated by the rumors and dreamed of “white men who looked pale like the spirits of the dead,” devices flying overhead, and strange lighted steamboats that passed in the night. News of the approaching civilization upset their peace of mind. The Unambal no longer attained the psychological “disposition necessary for the physical act of generation.” In a sense, the Aborigines were suffering from a kind of psychic shock. As Lommel put it, the spirit-child dream might well be indispensable for biological conception.

References

1. Ashley Montagu (1974) Coming Into Being Among the Australian Aborigines. London and Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul, p.63.

2. James G. Cowan (1992) The Aborigine Tradition. Boston: Element Books (160 N. Washington, Boston, MA 02114.) p.25.

3. Daisy M. Bates (1940) Passing of the Aborigines: A lifetime spent among the natives of Australia. London: John Murray, p. 27.

4. Andreas Lommel (1951). Modern culture influences on the Aborigines. Oceania, 5, 21.

Messages From the Dream World

Spirit-child dreams are the catalysts that transform a spirit-child “from the world of the unborn to that of the living.” [Editor’s Note: And most surprisingly to our modern mind-set, such dreams are primarily the province of the men.] In a representative dream, a small dark-skinned spirit-child, two to three inches high, reveals its name and expresses a desire for birth. If the man has several wives, he chooses the most appropriate mother and describes her whereabouts to the spirit-child.

One young man’s dream occurred six years prior to his son’s birth. In the dream, Bos saw a pilot involved in an air battle. The enemy shot his plane down, and wounded the pilot’s arm and leg. The injured spirit-child approached Bos and said, “You are my father, but I will send my sister to be born first. I must go to America to get good medicine. I will be born to you in six years. You will recognize me.” Sure enough, the moment Bos saw the newborn’s crooked arm and leg, he said, “This is the son I dreamed.”

A man’s dream is the root cause of pregnancy, according to the Unambal and Worora Aborigines. In such a pre-conception dream, the man’s soul can wander around the country and meet a spirit-child, usually at a sacred water pool where the man’s own soul originally “emanated.” After dreaming about the spirit-child, he hands it over in a second dream to his wife. Aspiring fathers who sleep near the water pools typically dream of a rock python, a supernatural being, who comes bearing a spirit-child in its mouth as a gift. Nine months later, the father names the newborn after the water pool where he “conceived” him.

Husbands sometimes “find” a spirit-child in a dream when they are away from home. On these occasions, an Aborigine captures the spirit-child and ties it in his hair until he returns to his wife. He transfers the spirit-child to his wife by placing it near his wife or on her navel. The spirit-child enters the wife’s womb, “though not necessarily at once.”

Aborigines exhibit such a high level of sensitivity that they not only meet spirit-children via a subtle dream, they even find them while hunting or gathering food. They often experience omens, see fleeting images, or hear a spirit-child’s voice in the wind or water calling “father.” A spirit-child picks out a suitable man, sits upon his shoulder, and rides home with him after the hunt. The “father” hears the spirit-child whispering into his ear, or feels him tweaking his hair or making his muscles twitch.

Men in the Forrest River region observe spirit-children riding on the back of the legendary Rainbow Snake. The sacred spirit of fertility carries spirit-children along the rivers and lakes where potential fathers are fishing. When a spirit-child sights a man to his liking, he calls, “father.” A receptive man brings the spirit-child home by securing him in his hair which is smeared with red ochre, drawn back and bound with hair string. In certain cases, a man will find a spirit-child when he “sees” a tiny snake or fish suddenly appear and disappear. Then, for some reason, he keeps the spirit-child for years fastened in his hair before transferring the spirit-child to his wife.

Remembering My Birth

The focus of what I was exploring overall was to do with the question of why my everyday life has been so fucking painful. Why have I lost the simple pleasure of sitting in the sun, of walking in the warmth of the evening, of just being around other people. All the time I ached inside with such intensity I was robbed of any everyday pleasure or desire to be with anyone.

In looking at this feeling as it expressed in my body, and not blaming it onto present circumstances or particular people or events – but simply saying – why is this existing in me NOW – while I am by myself? – I felt myself sliding deeper into the body/feeling state of it. It was like everything else began slipping away, and the thing I was looking at getting clearer and clearer, with all its roots and branches. In this way I slipped right back into the most primitive of conditions – the infant state – prior to language or thinking. It was an extraordinary experience to enter so fully into this state and examine it so clearly. I wished I could somehow teach other people to do it. And strange as it may seem, even though I was deeply immersed in the state of infancy, my rational self was exploring exactly how it was happening, and what one would need to help other people to do.

What I was watching was the period of my development in the womb and after birth. At first I was simply an organism, a biological process, a bundle of cells. Even so I had deeply implanted patterns of response and behaviour – I suppose what we call genetic coding. But these genetically produced responses to development and environment were sort of inherited or what is today called hard wired. They werent a matter of personal choice. There was no person as we know it to choose. Nevertheless I was a responding, living being. There came a point however where the complexity of my development achieved a new stage. This was the possibility of learned responses, and these were quite different to hard-wired responses. It was incredibly exciting to see and realise this. It was the transitional point between being simply a biological process, and the earliest stages of the development of personal awareness. Here in fact, in the ability to learn a new or personal response, was the foundation of human intelligence and personality, with all its quirks and difficulties. This transition, I felt, occurred long before birth, although I had no sense of what period of prenatal development it was. See Children’s Traumatic Fears

Part of the excitement I felt was to do with seeing how anything we learn at this most fundamental level, will colour all further learning. To quote from ABC’s of the Human Mind, ‘In addition to the psychological damage (and often physical abuse) that alcoholic parents may inflict on their children, a woman who drinks heavily during pregnancy can injure the brain of her unborn child, a condition called foetal alcohol syndrome.’ The book also points out that the foetus has stress reactions each time its mother inhales cigarette smoke.

I didn’t see anything like that. although my mother was a smoker – but I did see the enormous range of possible reactions at this level, and the very start of personality differentiation. In fact this led on to the main event of what I experienced in this whole session.

Having seen how personal responses develop, my flow of experience moved on to what happened to me after birth. (The things that I experienced about pre-natal life in other sessions have all been positive.) What I experienced and gained insight into was that a whole scene was set and played out in regard to gaining my needs and relating to women after I was born. I learned certain fundamental personal responses that have set my personality in a particular structure since.

As already said elsewhere, I desperately needed my mother’s passionate connection with me at a feeling level. I needed her love and confidence to help me come through the struggle with breathing, with digesting, with existing as a premature baby without any of the intensive care such babies are given now. I needed help in facing fear of death, not as a concept or thought, or even as an emotion, but as a fundamental condition of my being fighting for life. I didnt get these from my mother. I did however get them from my grandmother. So at the basic level I split in two. My psyche forked off in two branches. This was like a revelation, and gave me an enormous feeling of connecting with myself as I am today. It explained so much about how I feel in the world. Strangely it isnt a new idea. I have touched on it many times in the past, but never quite so starkly.

The excitement I felt about all this was partly personal, but partly from looking at all the strange and wonderful psychological shapes people are due to such events in their early life. For me, trying to live the normal life has been incredibly frustrating. It is an enormous relief to admit to myself that I am not normal – that I am dual, and want both sides of my needs met, even though this might mean reaching in different directions. I felt I wanted to write about the strangeness of living as one actually is instead of trying to be the shape one is expected to be socially. For myself I feel a sense of, “Bugger the world I want to get on with being me before I die – even if that means being more ruthless than I have been in the past”.

After this powerful meeting with my twin self, I went into a strong feeling of simply existing, and gradually recognised it as another fundamental infant state. It is the state in which the infant is saying, “Love me, want me, feed me, as I am, without me making any effort to be anything other than myself”. It isnt a conscious thing, but I have a deep feeling that the baby expects this instinctively. It is a shock if it doesn’t get it.

As I experienced this – lay in it – I felt sure that quite a lot of people never actually emerge from it. They live life waiting for God/parents/ society/partners to do for them whatever their needs are.

The next step is to suckle the tit. At first this is simply getting ones needs given. But it develops into a relationship with someone other than oneself, and leads on in some way to the major change where one has to get out and dig ones own potatoes in one way or another. Again I felt sure that many people get stuck in the stage of wanting the tit to be forever held out to them, and never actually going out and digging their potatoes. See Surviving Love and Relationships

Of course, I was looking at where I stand in relationship to the world, because this was part of the question I was asking myself – How do I achieve a better connection with the world? This includes such details as getting more of a share of the worlds goods or money, a place to live, peace in ones personal and social relationship. There is certainly a part of me that is still in the infant stage of saying ‘love me, why aren’t you coming and picking me up’? My active go getting, dig my own potatoes self sometimes gets tripped up by that.

I saw that one of my earliest orientations with getting my own needs was in the way of information gathering, synthesising, interpreting, integrating and re-presenting. This still has a lot of possibilities for me, and is something I still enjoy. The other side is the help I can give people in home-building – i.e. practical skills. This is very much appreciated by people as most of us have powerful nest building instincts which connect with powerful emotions and drives. So anyone who aids us in such basic needs can find rewards. Thirdly, being premature related me to the world of the unconscious, to being unable to relate to the norm, much more fully than many people. I was born in a sort of sub-aqua world of the womb. I hadnt actually emerged psychologically. Because all my life I have been trying to find the womb again, find the self that didnt ever get its developmental needs met, I have access to the unconscious in a way most people find difficult. So I at times have something I can teach or share about this.

I don’t know how these various aspects of self interconnect, but obviously behaviour connects with emotions which connect with past experience which connects with relationships, and so on and on. Whatever looped me back to the beginning now took me back to the sentence of, “You fucking bitch”. I had already felt what came next many times before, but each time with some fresh insight. So what came was an experience of connecting with Chris physically, with entering the bliss of genital union. As I did so I went through the portal of her vagina, so to speak, into the world of my own deep self and vast experience – much of which has never been made conscious. Sex is a wonderful way to touch the deepest in one, to re-connect with the most fundamental aspects of oneself, the wonder of the womb, the pain or pleasure of longing and yearning for contact with another being, the opening of the senses, the release of passionate emotions, the loss of oneself in someone else, the absorbing into oneself something of the person one loves in this way, the meeting with life itself.

The penis I feel is – or can be – the same as the vagina for a woman – a doorway to herself and all these wonders. In a way, although one may as a person help to create a special environment in which ones partner can the more fully discover themselves, I felt one shouldn’t take it too personally.

We dive through the doorway into our own psychic world. We can, if we can meet the monsters of our own fears and pain, come to the garden of Eden, Adam and Eve – the life beyond the womb, deep inside beyond words and personal experience, and deep outside in the world.

All the bits were tumbling together at this point. As the baby, prior to the development of personal responses, I am in the Garden of Eden. At that point in my development I am at one with nature. I am biological and I am consciousness. But my consciousness has no differentiation between itself and the creative biological, genetic forces. Therefore I feel at one with life, and with myself – union.  

Gathering More Insights

At another time I went back to that primal birth experience and gathered some more insights and healing.

I explained to France – a good friend – that each time she touched my back there was a ripple through my whole body. I said this because she was moving across different areas too fast. The same one place could produce a prolonged enough response to discover what that part of the body connected with physically and psychologically.

Then I asked France to stay in one place, to keep the pressure on one area. When she did this I began to feel that the particular spot being pressed connected with my throat and my rectum. It has links downwards and upwards. I could also feel a small part of the brain lit into action as it was pressed.

As this was happening I began to feel that nature erected self-awareness because it was so wonderful for life itself to look back at itself and develop further understanding. It had the possibility of working with the other creatures, of being a part of the processes of life on earth. We could work with forces of nature. Instead of that it has become a sort of self idolatry thing. You know, look how great we are. Let’s do this for us! It is like that awful advert — “Because I deserve it!”

I asked France again to stay on one place so I could see if it were possible to explore the connections.

“I can experience this impulse going right into my brain. But it is also going straight down into the cellular level of my being. It seems to be stimulating different responses that my being is capable of. It is calling them into play artificially. I suppose it is like playing notes and causing a piano or musical instrument to respond in certain ways. So in a way it is like exercising my being. I can feel a part of me coming alive in some way. It makes me wonder what this conscious self of mine is; what part it plays in the body. It is lovely to feel it as part of all that is happening in my body at the moment.”

There is something going on in my body that I am barely aware of yet. Areas of sensitivity are touched that connect with past experience. Therefore the touch connects with those areas, with those feelings, with those memories. It goes on and on because those memories connect with habitual responses and the other levels of myself. France was pressing on the lower part of my spine where I think there was not much sensation. But it was bringing about the response in which my body wanted to groan and move. There was no pain attached to this it was simply an impulse arising from the pressure on that area of the spine. I allowed the moaning gasping sound to be expressed. I could feel the memory that was being touched and stimulated linking right back into the womb. A distinct sense arose that my body was just being formed — that I was just forming my body. As I was doing this things happened. I could feel my body as an integrated whole. The moaning struggle went on, deepening. I began to make baby like noises. As this happened I experienced complete helplessness with the overriding feeling of not being able to move. Like a tiny baby that did not yet have the capacity to move its own limbs because of the impact of full gravity. I knew in some way that this was how I felt when I was born. I couldn’t move and was completely inert and dependent. Completely without an ability to do anything for myself. There was just a big hunger.

Now the moans continued and my body jerked into being curled up in a ball. I was gasping and groaning with pain. It was pain I could actually feel in my solar plexus. I am a little child locked into that part of my development and its pain. It is the memory that was deep in my bones. I want. I want. I am just a huge want. That’s all I am, just a bloody great want! I want! I want! I want! I want! I really want!

Then I was talking to that part of me as the adult who was experiencing it, saying that I do love you little wanting being. You are a part of me and I am trying to help you. So I am holding you and trying to feel what you want. It’s awful to know that you have been feeling that want for such a long-time.

I realised as I was experiencing this that this tiny part of my being was being cut off from the umbilical cord before the process of growth in me was ready to survive independently. I was too tiny to be able to feed properly in any other way. So the pain in my solar plexus was caused by an immense hunger, a sense of loss, a feeling of being cut off from the flow of life, from the flow of life that gave me existence. And it was painful. All I knew was a longing to be reconnected to the umbilical cord once more. As I understood this I then imagined this tiny part of me being connected to my own flow of blood so it could be nourished. It desperately needed that sense of connections that feeling of nourishment and life flowing into it. And when I did that, when I imagined that connection, I could feel it relax and the pain of hunger and the fear of dying subsided. Quite quickly I could feel it developing. The impulse to suckle was emerging, but still a long way from being established. (The next day while listening to France I felt twitches in my lips and mouth, and when I allowed them my mouth made the beginnings of a suckling movement. I realised that the tiny part of my being that I contacted was already beginning to develop and its process of growth was going on within me even though I was only barely aware of it.)

Suckling the teat was not enough. After all I did not have the strength or the ability to suckle yet. I needed to be connected. If it was at the breast, then I needed to be connected in the same effortless connection that I had with the umbilical cord. Suckling was not an option. In my actual afterbirth period I had to make enormous efforts to get what I wanted. This has left an indelible mark on the emergence of my personality. I have to make a bloody great effort to get what I wanted, and that has set me up for life. I will not get what I want unless I make a fucking great effort. It felt like a superhuman effort. I was just a tiny bundle of cells not ready for the outside world.

As these experiences were felt and I gained insight into them it was obvious why my sexual orientation had developed in the way it has. I had been cut off prematurely from connection with the umbilical cord and my whole need was to be reconnected. I could feel very distinctly that the level of development I had reached had no ability whatsoever to give of itself. Its whole program was to receive, to be nourished, to draw into itself. And that level of my being was programmed to connect. As the sperm and ovum it had connected to the wall of the uterus. It had developed that connection in a life-giving way. It had maintained that connections via the placenta and the umbilical cord. Its whole existence was about connection and nourishment. Connection and being nourished. As I could see from what I was experiencing, that part of my being had never developed beyond that point. It was only now, through being connected, beginning the process of further development. Yet here was the foundation of my experience of connection with another being. My experience was that I have not grown beyond the point of only being able to receive. So when my body grew and started the connection with another being through sex, the deepest part of me only knew how to connect in the process of receiving. It had not developed the point where it could in any way give. It had not developed anything to give. So my sexual experience was one of being ripped apart, of being vampirised, of being sucked dry of the energy that I needed. As I saw this, as I understood this, I felt that perhaps if that part of me that I have now contacted could grow and develop, there may be a time when connection through sex would lead to a very different experience.

France was touching other parts of my spine and I found that when she touched the back of my head there was an enormous reaction. My whole being jerked away from the contact. Yet I was still a tiny baby in what I was experiencing and so it was a terrible effort to try to avoid that pain. I asked France to touched the area very gently. When she did so my body went into very powerful movements and I feel certain I went through being born when my head and neck were crushed and pressed creating this memory of great sensitivity of the back of my head.

Following that, I felt as if I wanted to die. I didn’t want to breathe. I didn’t want to live. This was all too much to bear. So I just lay quietly for a while wanting to disappear back into whatever I have emerged from.

Gradually this changed and I felt a new impulse coming in, the process of being born again. By experiencing those moments of babyhood, of being newborn, with the struggles and torments that existed for me, it seems to offer the possibility of being born again without that torment, without those pains. It reminded me of the saying, you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven unless you become as a little child.

This experience of responding to pressure on different parts of my spine has led me to consider the possibility of what I give the tentative title to of Responsive Massage. It seems to me that if one understood the principles at work here, and used it with that sort of slowness and understanding of being able to respond, this could be a very helpful technique to enable people to find those deeply buried early memories in the womb and out of the womb.

As I came out of the experience of my premature birth I had a great feeling of love and sympathy for other premature babies. I felt as if, because of the work I have done on digging down into myself and meeting the experience of being premature, I was something of a pathfinder for other people who had been born prematurely. I had a spontaneous image of myself as being like a large ship, big enough to enable many smaller boats to connect a line, a lifeline to me. I felt as if I could give support, or I was giving support in a psychic way, to many other premature beings.

I know many people ask to help the suffering of others. But I feel the best way is to lift ones own suffering by being able feel it in a way that transform it.

Knowing the Baby Before it is Born

How I Stumbled Across A New Frontier

Elisabeth Hallett

See Elisabeth’s site and books at Light Hearts

About a dozen years ago, I stumbled across a mystery. I was working on a book about the postpartum bonding time, gathering parents’ personal stories, when I was struck by an unexpected fact. Quite a few parents emphasized that their connection with their baby had begun long before the actual birth. They told of sensing contact and communication during pregnancy–and in some of the most spine-tingling accounts, even before conception itself.

I was hooked! I had to learn more about this unknown dimension of parenthood. (The fact that I was hoping to have a second child, despite fertility problems and miscarriages, added to my interest.) Delving into the mystery of pre-birth communication led to writing and publishing Soul Trek: Meeting Our Children on the Way to Birth. But it didn’t end there. Like the more familiar Near-Death Experience, this is a phenomenon that opens up whole new vistas of thought and speculation.

Can our unborn children communicate with us–even before conception? A surprising number of parents have experiences that suggest it. Their stories raise intriguing questions. Do children come to us from a spiritual dimension? Do they come randomly, or to a specific family? Do they have any choice in the circumstances of their birth? These questions and more will be explored in upcoming installments of this column, through the experiences of people like ourselves.

Some experiences are dramatic; some are subtle and fleeting. And some, like the story of Steven and Miriam, are life-changing.

Long before she met her husband, Miriam realized she had a strong aversion to motherhood. She was so determined to avoid pregnancy that at the age of twenty-three she underwent tubal ligation. Later, when she and Steven married, they agreed that children were not an option. “For the first three years of our marriage,” Steven says, “we didn’t give it another thought–it just felt right to be a couple. We worked with a series of counselors over the years to improve our communication and understanding of ourselves. Then we met Helen Bonnie, the creator of Guided Imagery Through Music, and her sister-in-law Rosalie Lindquist.” As Miriam and Steven explored this type of therapy in a series of individual sessions, their experiences were profound–and very different.

Miriam recalls: “My sessions centered on what seemed to me to be past life experiences, many horrible events surrounding pregnancy and childbirth, continual loss through dismal and/or violent means! After each session, the people acting as our guides had us draw a mandala or some other representation of the experience. My drawings were uniformly depressing.

“My final session was much different from all the others. A guide, obviously myself in fairy godmother garb, appeared to me and took me back to several of the key figures I had identified with in my past life experiences. She mediated for me and asked the people from the past to help me out by keeping their fears and sharing with me only their talents and positive aspects. It was incredibly healing, and it prepared me for my husband relating his experience.”

Steven picks up the story: “During one session, I saw a beautiful toddler with blond hair and blue eyes who held out a box which contained a lotus flower and was illuminated. I drew a picture of this child afterward. When I arrived home I showed Miriam the picture and told her that I had seen our baby. She was a bit taken aback, and suggested that a baby might be a metaphor for some new aspect in our lives. Besides, there hadn’t been anyone with blue eyes in my family for three generations. I told her that I thought it was the image of a real baby.

“From then on, we both had numerous dreams and images of this child, and eventually decided to be open to him joining us. We spent a year doing pre-conception preparation–our health, environment and relationship were reworked.”

This period of preparation included surgery to reverse Miriam’s tubal ligation. She adds, “I also made a commitment before our Rabbi, family and friends to raise our child(ren) as Jews. Interestingly, this was June tenth, and our son Langston was conceived on June eleventh.”

Says Steven, “We didn’t ‘hear’ much from him during the time between his conception and his birth. I guess he didn’t have much to say. As you might have guessed, he looked just like the picture I drew, blue eyes and all. Langston just had his Bar-mitzvah earlier this month and has always been highly motivated about participating in this religious path. He’s been an exceptional person since pre-conception and we cherish our relationship with him.”

I would like to point out some of the features of this wonderful story. It was Steven who felt the first connection–these experiences don’t happen just to mothers. After the first contact, there were many others until the baby was conceived. As Miriam describes it, “He seemed to be continually tapping us on our shoulders, reminding us of his presence.” Finally, and most moving, is the apparent purpose behind the couple’s visionary experiences. Without them, they probably would never have chosen to have a child. Did Langston initiate the contact that led to his birth? These are some of the threads we’ll pick up in future columns.

Please join me in exploring this remarkable frontier. If you feel you may have experienced contact or communication with a child before conception, please consider sharing your story. You can contact me by e-mail at soultrek@montana.com, or by snail-mail at Elisabeth Hallett, Box 705, Hamilton MT 59840.

Music and Perinatal Stress Reduction

Editor’s Note: Dr. Fred Schwartz is a board certified anesthesiologist, practicing at Piedmont Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia. He is a member of the International Society for Music in Medicine, the National Association for Music Therapy as well as APPPAH. He has used music in the operating room and delivery suite for over 20 years, and for the last 10 years has also produced music for pregnancy, childbirth and babies. Direct all correspondence to 314 Woodward Way NW, Atlanta, Georgia 30305 or email: drmusic@mindspring.com. This article was published by permission of Dr. Schwartz and the Journal of Prenatal and Perinatal Psychology and Health, 12(l), Fall 1997

Abstract: The author uses his experience as an anesthesiologist involved in music medicine to discuss the psychophysiology of perinatal stress. The use of music as an adjunct to medical care for mother and child in the prenatal and postnatal period, as well as the implications for improved outcome and medical cost savings are addressed. The importance of the fetal auditory environment as a conduit for communication and learning is also examined.

From the viewpoint of the anesthesiologist, consciousness is manipulated both chemically and psychotherapeutically to result in decreased pain, altered recall, and a decreased stress response. One of the common elements in my work has been the use of stress reduction techniques during various states of consciousness. I have found that both anesthesia sedation and general anesthesia can open up pathways in the mind to healing therapies. Music and guided imagery can also have powerful healing qualities. When used together during anesthesia, these audio therapies can be used to complement the stress reducing properties of anesthesia and promote faster healing.

Some of the benefits of music in the labor and delivery suite that complement anesthesia are that it speeds up labor and decreases the amount of pain. It also decreases the stress response to labor which is beneficial to both mother and newborn. Couples coming to a delivery suite frequently perceive it as a foreign and unfamiliar environment. The act of choosing a musical program for childbirth allows a couple to exert some control over their environment. Music is very personal in that a particular piece may have a connection with certain past experiences and emotions. This acoustical painting of the hospital environment has been shown to make it less hostile and less anxiety provoking for patients. Since pain and enjoyment emerge as two distinct, though related dimensions of the birth process, music can express both the struggle and the joy of the occasion. The beauty here is that the benefits of the music can be utilized during natural childbirth, with childbirth under epidural anesthesia, and if need be during Cesarean section. Music can help the newborn know that a special event is happening and when the newborn comes into this world the music along with the familiar sound of voices is indeed special.

Music is particularly useful during Cesarean sections. Most anesthetics for C-sections are performed under epidural or spinal anesthesia. The pregnant mother is anesthetized from the chest down. Usually no intravenous sedatives or narcotics are given to the mother until the baby is born, because these can cause sedation or respiratory depression in the newborn. There is often some degree of discomfort for mother before the baby is born, when the uterus is manipulated. Music is an effective way to decrease the discomfort here. I try to get a feel for what the couple and their unborn child find soothing. If they do not have an idea of what they want to hear, I usually suggest classical music or new age music. To me, this type of music fits beautifully with C-sections. To give you an idea of the contrast of requests I have had I will relate to you a Friday evening when there were 3 C-sections in a row. The first 2 were done to Beethoven Piano Sonatas. Our last couple was asked what they and their baby wanted to hear, and the mother replied, “My baby only likes rock and roll, but you have to play it real loud.” She picked Bruce Springstein’s “Born in the USA” and this did seem fitting for the occasion.1

An exaggerated stress response has negative effects during pregnancy and childbirth, just as it is detrimental in most disease processes. Most of the physiologic effects of stress are mediated through stress hormones called catecholamines. In the pregnant patient, elevated levels of these stress hormones cause decreased effectiveness of uterine contractions (Simkin, 1986). Some of these patients end up needing C-sections because of this. Intense anxiety has been associated with fetal death in the third trimester (Myers & Myers, 1979). More commonly, the extremely anxious patient in labor will have high catecholamine levels which decrease placental blood flow and can cause fetal distress. This is further compounded if the laboring patient hyperventilates, which can further decrease placental blood flow.

Music’s ability to slow respiratory rates and decrease the stress response is beneficial during labor. It has been shown to have the ability to shorten labor (Winokur, 1984). Even when the course of labor does not speed up when music is utilized, the perceived length of labor decreases (Clark, McCorkle & Williams, 1981). Other studies have shown that when music is played, pain is decreased (McKinney, 1990, Hanser, Larson & O’Connell, 1983).

During my wife’s first pregnancy, I began to think about the environment of our unborn child. I knew that the fetus could respond to music and sound in the womb and I became fascinated with the implications of the constant exposure of the fetus to placental blood flow sounds. Some earlier studies had been done by psychologist Lee Salk (1973), who noticed that most new mothers exhibited a natural preference for holding their infants on the left side of their chest near the heart. Dr. Salk analyzed a number of popular books containing a large number of photographs and artistic representations of infants and adults. Almost 80% of these showed mothers holding their infants on the left side of their chests. This preference extended across all cultures. Balancing groups for left and right-sided dominance, Dr. Salk then replicated this left-sided preference in a large group of new mothers and babies (and used these heart sounds to calm newborns in the hospital nursery). He reasoned there was an imprinting of placental sounds in utero so that sounds after birth remind the baby of the womb experience. This would explain some of the rhythmic similarities of modern music to intrauterine rhythms.

Others have connected the similarities between womb sounds and the “nonsense sounds” that mothers use in talking to their babies. Some of these calming sounds are hush, hush (English) shah (Yiddish), ushuru (Ethiopian), and Insh’allah (Egyptian). Perhaps the similarities to womb sounds also explain the spiritual use of similar sounds in different religions, i.e. “Om” in Buddhism), “Shalom” in Hebrew, Tibetan overtone chanting, and Gregorian chants.

Ultrasound studies have shown that at 16 weeks gestation the fetus can respond to outside sound (Hepper, 1994, Shahidullah & Hepper, 1992). The sounds of the blood flow through the placenta can be heard at a very loud level in the womb. For the lower sound frequencies below 500 Hz, mean sound levels are 80 decibels with peaks to 95 decibels (Gerhardt & Abrams, 1996). This is about as loud as it gets on a crowded dance floor on a Saturday night. A good deal of attention has been given to the so called Mozart Effect where exposure to this music briefly increased spatial IQ in college students (Rauscher, Shaw & Ky, 1995), as well as work with preschool children showing that music training can enhance language development, spatial, and mathematical abilities (Rauscher, et al, 1997). Evidence points to the fact that similar learning benefits extend far back into the prenatal period, and that the sounds and rhythms in the womb may contain information important to the development of the fetal brain (Devlin, Daniels & Roeder, 1997, Shetler, 1989). The newborn can differentiate a recording of his own mother’s prenatal womb sounds from a recording of another mother (Righetti, 1996). The newborn can also differentiate emotional content in the recording of his prenatal womb sounds and respond with changes in movement and heart rate (Righetti, 1996).

There is a vast amount of potential information available to the fetus that can be given in the playing of just one musical note or in singing or talking a single syllable. The content of this sound is both informational and emotional and can be used by the fetus in profound ways. The synaptic network in the fetal brain as well as the infant brain undergoes learning-dependent reorganization. This process involves synaptic “pruning” or regression of neural circuits, as well as synaptic sprouting in the developing brain. This is consistent with the observation of psychologists that infants and children may have enhanced behavioral abilities that they lose later in life (Johnston, 1995). Since fetal hearing is probably the major component of this learning-dependent synaptic pruning and sprouting, the fetus is participating in a second and third trimester auditory amphitheater that is perhaps more important that any later classroom. We have only begun to explore the connection between sound and neurobiological development in the fetus and newborn.

My interest in the fetal audio environment led to a musical collaboration with Burt and Joe Wolff. We produced a musical recording of womb sounds and female vocal sounds’ called Transitions(tm) and a subsequent series of womb sound recordings for pregnancy, childbirth and children.2 It was clear to us that this type of music was very soothing to the newborn, and especially for the premature baby.

A subsequent study showed that stimulation with the Transitions(tm) womb sound music was helpful in the care of mechanically ventilated, agitated premature babies with low oxygen levels. Significant increases in oxygen saturation as well as decreased levels of agitation were found with the use of music (Collins & Kuck, 1991).

Another study showed that when lullaby music was played in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) that there were less episodes of oxygen desaturation (Caine, 1991). No doubt that some of the high-decibel sounds from alarms and equipment in the NICU are harmful to the neonate. In one study a group of premature babies were insulated from their audio environment with earmuffs (Zahr & Traversay, 1995). These infants had higher oxygen saturations and spent more time in sleep compared to control group infants. Other studies have shown a doubling of daily weight gain when premature babies in the NICU were given music therapy (Caine, 1991, Coleman, Pratt & Abel, 1996). Additional studies using music with premature babies have shown a 3- to 5-day earlier discharge from the NICU (Caine, 1991, Coleman, Pratt & Abel, 1996, Standley, 1996).

Increased stress response consumes precious calories. It is now clear that the use of music therapy not only has a beneficial effect on the growth and development of premature babies, but may lead to cost savings in their medical care–a significant problem in modern society. In the United States alone, the extra cost of intensive care for these low birth weight infants is over $1,000. per day or over 3.5 billion dollars a year. Later added costs of special education and continued medical expense for these children are even larger than the initial costs for their NICU care (Lewit, et al, 1995). Many of these babies suffer hearing and visual impairment, mental retardation, cerebral palsy or learning disabilities. Ultimately, the uncountable costs are paid by human beings who are not able to realize their full potential. So it appears that with a relatively small expenditure for music in our neonatal ICU’s we could decrease the time in the NICU by over 3 days and save over $3,000. for every premature baby.

Premature birth is the predominant cause of low birth weight and neonatal mortality in the United States (Wegman, 1996). In the US almost one in one hundred babies dies shortly after birth. (Paneth, 1995). This is the highest mortality rate of all the industrialized countries. Despite our best efforts, the consequences of premature labor will continue to be a huge problem for society. Despite a large investment in research and programs to prevent premature birth, the incidence of prematurity in the US has not decreased (Paneth, 1995).

A number of risk factors have been associated with prematurity and low birth weight (See Table 1). Many of these factors are interrelated. In the United States, a large amount of premature births occur in adolescents, a group with higher rates of poverty, lack of prenatal care, poor nutrition, stress, tobacco use, alcohol intake, and drug abuse (Shiono & Berman, 1995, Hedegaard, Henriksen & Niels, 1996).

To gain more insight into premature birth it is interesting to look at some of what we know about how labor is initiated. Thousands of years ago, Hippocrates believed that the baby decides when the birth process begins-a fact that has been confirmed by research today (Nathanielsz, 1995). Evidence points to fetal initiation of labor about 2 to 3 weeks before birth. In the fetal brain, the hypothalamus increases secretion of CRH (corticotrophin releasing hormone) and this stimulates the pituitary to release ACTH (adrenocorticotrophin). This stimulates the fetal adrenal cortex to secrete cortisol. The placenta reacts by producing more estrogen and less progesterone which eventually triggers the contractions of labor.

Since we know that the fetus is involved in initiating labor, it is interesting to wonder why the fetus would initiate premature birth. We know that pregnancies filled with stress are more inclined to conclude prematurely. Use of tobacco and cocaine also increase the stress response in the mother and this is probably true for the fetus as well. There is a biologic explanation for the fetus being able to react to maternal stress by initiating labor. In the human species, our fight or flight stress response was often effective for our survival. In modern times, the stress response is seen as a catalyst for disease. It stands to reason that for biologic survival of the species there would be a mechanism to allow initiation of labor under stressful conditions. Especially in the past, it was much more common for the pregnant woman and fetus to be exposed to the risk of cataclysmic death from the environment or infectious diseases and epidemics. In these situations, some of these premature babies might survive. For the mother, delivery of the baby would allow her to direct her energies toward survival and future childbearing. Despite a large amount of research dedicated to prevention of preterm labor, the incidence of prematurity in the US has not decreased (Paneth, 1995).

Table I Factors Associated with Low Birth Weight

Age below 18 years Drug and alcohol use Previous preterm delivery Infection Tobacco use Lack of prenatal care Maternal stress Poverty

A number of factors have been associated with the risk of prematurity and low birth weight (Table 1). Many of these factors are interrelated. In the United States, a large amount of these premature births occur in the adolescents, who as a group have higher rates of poverty, lack of prenatal care, poor nutrition, stress, tobacco use, alcohol intake, and drug abuse (Shiono & Berman, 1995, Hedegaard, Henriksen & Niels, 1996).

To gain more insight into premature birth it is interesting to look at some of what we know about how labor is initiated. Thousands of years ago, Hippocrates believed that the baby decides when the birth process begins. There is now good evidence to show that the fetus does initiate labor (Nathanielsz, 1995). Evidence points to fetal initiation of labor about 2 to 3 weeks before birth. In the fetal brain, the hypothalamus increases secretion of CRH (corticotrophin releasing hormone) and this stimulates the pituitary to release ACTH (adrenocorticotrophin). This stimulates the fetal adrenal cortex to secrete cortisol. The placenta then produces more estrogen and less progesterone and this eventually sets off the contractions of labor.

Since we know that the fetus is involved in initiating labor it is interesting to speculate on why the fetus would initiate premature birth. We do know that pregnancies that contain a lot of stress are more inclined to be concluded prematurely. Tobacco and cocaine use increase the stress response in the parturient, and this likely is true also in the fetus. There is a biologic explanation for the fetus being able to react to a maternal stress response by initiating labor. In the human species, our fight or flight stress response was often effective during primitive times for our survival. Although in modern times this response has become more of a catalyst for disease. It stands to reason that for biologic survival of the species there would be a mechanism to allow initiation of labor under stressful conditions. In the past, it was much more common for the pregnant woman and fetus to be exposed to the risk of cataclysmic death from the environment or infectious diseases and epidemics. In these situations, some of these premature babies might survive. For the mother, delivery of the baby would allow her to direct her energies toward survival and future childbearing.

As far as other possible mechanisms for initiation of labor, there could be some hormonal transfer from the mother to the fetus through the placenta. Or perhaps a lack of certain nutrients either from poor maternal diet or decreased supply of these nutrients via decreased placental blood flow. Perhaps there is a kind of dialogue that goes on during pregnancy between the mother and her unborn baby that is interrupted in some way by maternal stress. What about the transfer of emotions (or lack of) from the mother to the fetus? It is obvious that the expression of love, nurturing and acceptance is expressed by the mother to the fetus by her voice; through the wide gamut of tonality, rhythm and inflection produced by her talking and singing. It is very possible that this vocal information (or lack of) has an effect on the fetal initiation of labor. It is intuitive that there is a profound interplay of information and emotion involved in this sacred and precious dialogue.

Another possibility is that fetal hearing of the maternal blood flow sounds may in some way cause the fetus to initiate premature labor. Is there some way in which the fetal brain processes changes in womb sound rhythms? Biologic rhythmicity is a fundamental aspect of healthy human beings. For example, the rhythm of our heart beat is not like a metronome but contains a beat-to-beat variability. As we age the variability of our biologic rhythms decrease. And when we reach death, there is no rhythm or variability. The fetus in distress usually has a decreased variability of the fetal heart rate. These changes are sometimes used diagnostically to make clinical decisions during pregnancy and childbirth. Since the predominant rhythmic component of fetal intrauterine hearing is the sound of the mother’s blood flow pulsing through the placenta, is it not likely that the fetal brain uses this sound and rhythmic information in deciding to initiate labor? We know that maternal stress often manifests in a hyperactive sympathetic nervous system and a decrease in maternal heart rate variability (Ekholm, et al, 1996). So perhaps the fetus perceives decreases in maternal heart rate variability and uses this information as part of the initiation of preterm labor.

Another possible cause for preterm labor is an exaggerated maternal apprehension for the safety of the baby as well as the worry that Braxton Hicks contractions are foreboding a premature labor (Cheek, 1995). This will usually provoke a call to the midwife or obstetrician and bedrest and other treatments to prevent preterm labor. This will often increase the patient’s anxiety even more and lead to continuing painful Braxton Hicks contractions. The quality of telepathic communication from the mother to the fetus will reveal anxiety and be picked up by the fetus. This may provoke initiation of the labor cascade by the fetus. Hypnosis during this time has been successful in prolonging the pregnancy (Cheek, 1995, Omer, Friedlander & Palti, 1986).

What appears to be a common attribute here is that an exaggerated maternal stress response can lead to the initiation of preterm labor. Besides the documented clinical use of hypnosis in the treatment of preterm labor, meditation has been documented to decrease stress hormone levels in various clinical situations (Sudsuang, Chentanez & Veluvan, 1991). Music alone has been shown to diminish stress-induced increases in stress hormones (Spintge & Droh, 1987). Music combined with guided imagery also decreases stress hormone levels (McKinney, Tims, Kumar & Kumar, 1997; McKinney, et al, 1997 and Bonny, ND). Music therapy has also decreased maternal stress for pregnant adolescents (Liebman & MacLaren, 1991).

My interests led me to develop a tape of guided imagery with music to affect the maternal-fetal dialog, The Transitions Maternal and Fetal Wellness Program(tm) (Schwartz & McDonald, 1996). By using this tape, I hoped to positively influence some of the risk factors related to preterm labor and low birth weight. The tape was designed to reduce overall stress, strengthen communication between mother and fetus, and to get mother to center on the here and now. Messages gently alert the mother to the dangers of alcohol, drugs, and smoking, and to the importance of nutrition and exercise.3

Initial anecdotal reports from a group of low socioeconomic mothers have indicated higher birth weights in the mothers exposed to this guided imagery and music (Hetty Watters, 1997). A large multi-center study is being initiated to explore these benefits to various populations. Maternal and neonatal variables will include gestational age, birth weight, APGAR scores, duration of labor, birth complications, the cost of medical care, and maternal and paternal fetal attachment. We know the medical benefits of this type of therapy but proving this in further studies is necessary before we will see large scale use of these therapies.

Notes

1. Despite this particular mother’s own preference for loud rock music, other research reveals the fetal child prefers quieter passages of Mozart and Vivaldi, consonant music over dissonant music, and, obviously, lullabies (For example, Clements, 1977; Montemurro, 1996; Zentner and Kagen, 1998).

References

Bonny, H. L. (ND). Guided imagery and music therapy: Past, present and future implications. Baltimore: ICM Press.

Caine, J. (1991). The effects on music on the selected stress behaviors, weight, caloric and formula intake, and length of hospital stay of premature and low birth weight neonates in a newborn intensive care unit. Journal of Music Therapy, 28(4), 180-192.

Cheek, D. B. (1995). Early use of psychotherapy in prevention of preterm labor: the application of hypnosis and ideomotor techniques with women carrying twin pregnancies. Pre- and Perinatal Psychology Journal, 10(l), 5-19.

Clark, M., McCorkle, R. & Williams, S. (1981). Music therapy assisted labor and delivery. Journal of Music Therapy, 18, 88-100.

Clements, M. (1977). Observations on certain aspects of neonatal behavior in response to auditory stimuli. Paper presented at the 5th Int. Congress of Psychosomatic Obstetrics and Gynecology, Rome.

Coleman, J. M., Pratt, R. R., & Abel, H. (1996). The effects of male and female singing and speaking voices on selected behavioral and physiological measures of premature infants in the intensive care unit. Presented at the International Society for Music in Medicine symposium at San Antonio, 10/96.

Collins, S. K., & Kuck, K. (1991). Music therapy in the neonatal intensive care unit. Neonatal Network, 9(6), 23-26.

Devlin, B. Daniels, M. & Roeder, K. (1997). The heritability of IQ. Nature, 388, 468-471.

Ekholm, M. K., Piha, S. J., Antila, K. J., and Erkkola, U. (1993). Cardiovascular autonomic reflexes in mid-pregnancy. British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, 100, 177-182.

Gerhardt, K. J. & Abrams, R. M. (1996). Fetal hearing: characterization of the stimulus and response. Seminars in Perinatology,20(l), 11-20.

Hanser, S. B., Larson, S. C., & O’Connell, A. S. (1983). The effect of music on relaxation of expectant mothers during labor. Journal of Music Therapy, 20(2), 50-58.

Hedegaard, M., Henriksen,T. B., Sabroe, S.& Niels, J. S. (1996). The relationship between psychological distress during pregnancy and birth weight for gestational age. Acta Obstetricia et Gynecologica Scandinavica, 75, 32-39.

Hepper, P. G. & Shahidullah, S. (1994). Development of fetal hearing. Archives of Disease in Childhood, 71, F81-F87.

Johnston, M. V. (1995). Neurotransmitters and vulnerability of the developing brain. Brain & Development,17, 301-306.

Lewit, E. M., Baker, L. S., Corman, H., & Shiono, P. H. (1995). The direct cost of low birth weight. The Future of Children, (The David and Lucille Packard Foundation) 5(l), 35-56.

Liebman, S. S. & MacLaren A. (1991). The effects of music and relaxation on third trimester anxiety in adolescent pregnancy. Journal of Music Therapy, 28(2), 89-100.

McKinney, C. H., Antom, M. H., Kumar, M., Tims, F. C. & McCabe, P. M. (1997). Effects of Guided Imagery and Music (GIM) therapy on mood and cortisol in healthy adults. Health Psychology, 16(4), 390-400.

McKinney, C. H., Tims, F. C., Kumar, A.M. & Kumar, M. (1997). The effect of selected classical music and spontaneous imagery on plasma beta-endorphin. Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 20(l), 85-99.

McKinney, C. H. (1990). Music therapy in obstetrics: A review. Music Therapy Perspectives, 8, 57-60.

Montemurro, R. N. (1996). Singing lullabies to unborn children: Experience in village Vilamarxant, Spain. Pre-and Perinatal Psychology Journal, 11(1), 9-16.)

Myers, R. E. & Myers, S. E. (1979). Use of sedative, analgesic, and anesthetic drugs during labor and delivery: Bane or boon? American Journal of Obstetrics Gynecology. 133: 83-104.

Nathanielsz, P. W. (1995). The role of basic science in preventing low birth weight. The Future of Children, (The David and Lucille Packard Foundation) 5(l), 57-70.

Omer, H, Friedlander, D. & Palti, Z. (1986). Hypnotic relaxation in the treatment of premature labor. Psychosomatic Medicine 48(5), 351-361.

Paneth, N. S. (1995). The problem of low birth weight. The Future of Children, (The David and Lucille Packard Foundation), 5(l), 19-34.

Rauscher, F. H., Shaw, G. L., & Ky, K. N. (1995). Listening to Mozart enhances spatial temporal reasoning: Towards a neurophysiological basis. Neuroscience Letter 185(l), 44-47.

Rauscher, F. H., Shaw, G. L., Levine, L. J., Wright, E. L., Dennis, W. R., & Newcomb, R. L. (1997). Music training causes long-term enhancement of preschool children’s spatial temporal reasoning. Neurological Research 19(l), 218.

Righetti, P. L. (1996). The emotional experience of the fetus: A preliminary report. Pre- and Perinatal Psychology Journal, 11(l), 55-65.

Salk, L. (1973). The role of the heart in the relations between mother and infant. Scientific American, 228(5), 24-29.

Schwartz, F .J. & McDonald, M. (1996). Transitions Maternal and Fetal Wellness Program. Transitions Music (cassette tape). 1930 Monroe Drive, Atlanta, Georgia 30324.

Shahidullah, S. & Hepper, P. G. (1992). Hearing in the fetus: prenatal detection of deafness. International Journal of Prenatal and Perinatal Studies 4(3/4), 235-240.

Shetler, D. J. (1989). The inquiry into prenatal musical experience: A report of the Eastman Project 1980-1987. Pre- and Perinatal Psychology Journal 3(3). 171-189.

Shiono, P. H. & Behrman (1995). The problem of low birth weight, ch 1. Low birth weight. The Future of Children, (The David and Lucille Packard Foundation), 5(l), 418.

Simkin, P.T. (1986). Stress, pain, and catecholamines in labor: Part 1. A review. Birth 13(4), 227-233.

Spintge, R. & Droh, R. (1987). Effects of anxiolytic music on plasma levels of stress hormones in different medical specialties. In R. R. Pratt (Ed.), The fourth international symposium on music: Rehabilitation and human well-being (pp. 88-101). Lanham, MD: University Press of America.

Standley, J. M. (1991). The role of music in pacification/stimulation of premature infants with low birth weights. Music Therapy Perspectives, 9, 19-25.

Standley, J. M., & Moore, R. M. (1995). Therapeutic effects of music and mother’s voice on premature infants. Pediatric Nursing, 21(6), 509-574.

Standley, J. M. (1996). The effect of music and multi-modal stimulation on physiologic and developmental responses of premature infants in neonatal intensive care. Presented to the International Society for Music in Medicine Symposium, San Antonio.

Sudsuang, R., Chentanez, V. & Veluvan, K. (1991). Effect of Buddhist meditation on serum cortisol and total protein levels, blood pressure, pulse rate, lung volume and reaction time. Physiology and Behavior. 50, 543-548.

Watters, H. (1997). Personal communication.

Wegman, M. E. (1996). Infant mortality: Some international comparisons. Pediatrics 98(6), 1020-1027.

Winokur, M. A. (1984). The use of music as an audio-analgesia during childbirth. Unpublished master’s thesis, The Florida State University, Tallahassee.

Zahr, L. K. & Traversay, J. D. (1995). Premature infant responses to noise reduction by earmuffs: Effects on behavioral and physiologic measures. Journal of Perinatology. 15(6), 448-455.

Zentner, M. R. and Kagan, J. (1998). Infant’s perception of consonance and dissonance in music. Infant Behavior and Development, 21(3), 483-492.

The Near Birth Experience: Talking with Jerry Bongard

By Elisabeth Hallett – contact: e-mail at soultrek@montana.com or by letter: Elisabeth Hallett, Box 705, Hamilton MT 59840;  http://www.light-hearts.com

Consciousness research in the last century explored the far reaches of mind and pushed back boundaries in all directions. Verifiable womb memories led to apparent pre-conception memory, while serious reincarnation research and the success of past-life therapy promised to expand human identity well beyond the narrow cradle-to-grave view.

We might expect that all this good news about the psyche’s true dimensions will have made a tremendous shift in the way we see ourselves. But, except for the popular embracing of the Near Death Experience, this has not happened. The mainstream model of what we are remains limited and has not incorporated concepts of prenatal memory, consciousness in the womb, and pre-existence.

Why have these expansive ideas failed to capture the popular imagination? Perhaps, in part, it is because the announcing voices have tended to come either from the research and psychotherapy worlds, or from the “New Age” subculture.

Jerry Bongard’s new book, The Near-Birth Experience: A Journey to the Center of Self, may be the one finally to engage “middle America.” It presents the concept of pre-existence and the possibility of reincarnation, in user-friendly terms that yet fully reveal the transcendent nature of the self. The greatest strength of this book may be that it comes from a person who met these ideas unexpectedly, explored them and found them to be transformational. His enthusiasm is contagious and may well succeed in carrying these exciting concepts past our cultural blind spot.

Jerry Bongard, M.A., M. Div., is a Lutheran minister with thirty years of counseling experience. While serving as director of Chrysalis Counseling Center in Bellevue, Washington, he found many of his clients (Vietnam vets among them) to be suffering from the aftereffects of trauma. It was the search for an effective a way to help these clients that led him to the work of Dr. David Cheek, an important contributor to the literature of pre- and peri-natal psychology.

Jerry Bongard’s own spiritual journey took a pivotal turn when he attended a conference with Dr. Cheek in March of 1991. Here he witnessed and learned to apply the technique of regression to the womb through light hypnosis guided by ideomotor finger signals. He soon observed that people moved readily from womb memories to an awareness of existing in a bodiless state before connecting with the fetus. He has devoted the past ten years to exploring the therapeutic and spiritual benefits of this “near birth experience.”

The “near birth experience” is Bongard’s convenient term for a series of subjective events that may arise spontaneously or be invited in a therapeutic setting. Typically, it involves the use of imagination as a springboard to womb memory, opening into an experience of oneself as spirit and an encounter that is strongly reminiscent of the Near Death Experience.

In the course of my own work I have received numerous reports from people who describe lifelong memories of pre-existence in a non-physical dimension. I assumed that such memories, if they exist in the rest of us, must be very deeply buried. Not so, according to Jerry Bongard. He maintains that memories of our spiritual origins are in fact readily accessible, in an atmosphere of trust and guided by our own inner wisdom via ideomotor signals. The case studies that he presents seem to bear out his contention that the “journey to the center of self” is available to us all.

I had the pleasure of previewing this fascinating book and of corresponding with the author, who graciously agreed to answer my many questions.

ELISABETH: Jerry, I would love to hear more about your initial reactions and thoughts when first confronted with the Near Birth Experience. Since most of us are brought up in a belief system that has nothing to say about an existence before this life, I would imagine there must have been a period of “cognitive dissonance” for you.

JERRY: After the seminar with David Cheek in the Bay Area, I called together a group of six therapists who worked with trauma patients, to show them some of the things I had learned. All seven of us were in the room when the first person agreed to regress back to the womb.

When she was in the womb, I asked her to go back to an earlier time, expecting her to go back to a week or maybe a month earlier than the time she was experiencing, which was just as labor was about to begin. She said, “Nothing is there.” So I thought something had gone wrong with the technique, that nothing was there. But when I asked her, “What do you mean, nothing is there?” she said, “There is nothing there, I’m in outer space. I don’t even have a body!”

The first person to have a reaction was herself. She began spilling tears which became a steady stream running down her cheeks. And she began to talk of the overwhelming love she was feeling, as she was sobbing. My first thought, as her mascara was running all over her face, was to get a kleenex, but I became so absorbed in the drama of it all that I soon forgot that. I and the other five therapists listened as she described the wonder of being in the presence of a warm Light where she felt so loved, so clean, so treasured. I remember the awe that all of us had in the room. “What is this!” That was my response. “What has happened here?”

That was all we did that first day. The next time we met, another therapist went back to an earlier lifetime, the first time I had observed that. She was the native American “ShoNee” who was in a teepee with her baby, six-year-old son, and her husband. Then she advanced to a time when warriors came from another tribe and killed the son. The story is in the book. She was so amazed when her regression was over. “I don’t know anything about Indians!” she said. She had no idea where the names and religious ideas came from.

Both of these were new adventures for me, on the edge of anything I had ever experienced. The first therapist later brought in a picture of the galaxy taken from outer space by an astronaut and said “This is exactly where I was!” I had already been intrigued by Dr. Cheek’s work, and was just progressing rapidly from one new experience to another, and I was in a state of disbelief as well as a recognition that “This could be real!” The group of therapists met with me for several weeks as we all tried to sort it out, and I soon went to Aerial Long who had also been at the seminar with Dr. Cheek, and she helped me experience for myself what it was about. My encounter with the Light, with Jesus {detailed in the book}, convinced me it was real and valuable, and ever since I have been engaged in this work.

Now I am open to believing that babies can connect with their mothers before they are conceived, that we have been here before and have reincarnated again, that God is present to all of us, and that our souls are the essence of who we are. The near birth experience has changed my view of life.

ELISABETH: One of the intriguing aspects of the near birth experience is the possibility of connecting with one’s purpose in life and with choices made “before.” I have often wondered whether we would make a better job of this incarnation if we could know these things. Is it common for people to reach such realizations? Or is this rare?

JERRY: For those who go all the way back to the “interlife,” I think it is rather common for them to have a new, or re-newed sense of meaning and purpose, of having chosen much of their life.

ELISABETH: Do such realizations — of choice and purpose — have the transforming power that I imagine they might yield?

JERRY: That’s the real question, and the answer I have is to tell you about two people, one of them in the book.

A man was in the South Pacific as part of the landing forces during World War II, and he was hit by a shell. He almost died. As he blacked out, he said, “Oh God, if you let me live, I will worship you all the days of my life!” When they were about to put him in a body bag they discovered he was still breathing. Two years later his son was born.

The son, now an adult, told me of memories he encountered during the near birth experience. He was an out-of-body soul with God, about to choose a life on earth, when he saw and heard (though without physical eyes and ears, however that works) a soul which became visible as a small light, coming to God and saying, “Oh God, if you let me live, I will worship you all the days of my life!”

This man, the son, then said to God, “I want this man to be my father when I am born, as I don’t want ever to forget you. To be born into a family where a father worships you all the days of his life will help me remember.”

But what happened is that the father, over a course of many years, stopped worshipping God, and forgot about the deal he made. The son forgot too, for a while, and “drifted.” During the near birth experience, he remembered.

In this example, there are two people involved. The father, when he was about to die, “remembered” God and came to him with a promise that he would worship God every day of his life if God let him live. After a while he forgot, but it was a very moving time for him. The son remembered during the near birth experience and he is remembering yet, but many forget, at least in the way they live their lives. Why some are influenced strongly, for a long time, and why some seem to forget, I don’t know.

A second example is about a friend of mine who at the age of 42 had a serious heart attack. That was eleven years ago. That made such an impression on him that he asked if he could give the sermon at our church where I was the pastor, after he had recovered from his quadruple by-pass surgery. When he preached he talked about how this heart attack had made him suddenly aware of the real purpose of his life. He regretted spending so much time away from his children and wife, working. He was a very talented person and had made a lot of money, but he loved the “applause” and strokes he got from everybody for his talent, and had often travelled away from family. He vowed that his life would change because of his heart attack. Now it is eleven years later, and he is living about half-way between his life eleven years ago and what he had vowed to do.

He did not have a near birth experience, but he had a spiritual “wake-up call.” The near birth experience is like that “wake-up call.” Some people never forget it, and some do. It is merely an event in life that people can learn from, or can choose to forget. It is what the Catholics call an “occasion of Grace.” It provides an opportunity to re-think, to re-member life. I have personally found it very exciting and helpful. So have others. But some don’t seem to benefit very much, if at all, from the experience.

ELISABETH: One point that has struck me in the stories detailed in your book is the very personal God that many people encounter. What kind of experience might someone have whose philosophy was very different, for example a Buddhist, or a devotee of Krishna? To what extent do you think this experience is conditioned by the individual’s belief system?

JERRY: The first person who comes to mind is a Boeing engineer who came to see me because he and his wife were having marriage problems. She had asked him to come in because she had encountered God in the near birth experience and wanted him to do so also. She was a devout Methodist. He was a total atheist. “I don’t believe in God at all!” he told me.

But he did regress to a time before birth, and found himself floating out of his body in space, out in the universe somewhere. He saw a light in the distance, and I asked him to go toward it. He did, and it appeared brighter and nearer, overwhelming him. I asked him if he recognized what the light was. He immediately opened his eyes, shook his head, and said, “I don’t believe in this stuff!” He refused to go any further, but said, “I know you want me to say that was God I saw, but I refuse to say it!”

The people who regress back to a time before this life, to a time I call the “interlife,” usually do see a bright light, much as do people in the Near Death Experience. They recognize this Light as God, and communicate with it in a very intimate way. The light seems to be the same for Christians and Jews and atheists. The only Buddhist I regressed to this time also saw the same light and responded to it as the others did. Most of the people do not refer to the Light as “Jesus” or any other name than “God” or “The Light.”

It is my opinion that each of us does have a deeply buried memory of God as a Light,and in the regression we connect with that memory, though it is then possible for a communication to take place as if it were a here and now conversation. I think that God does communicate with us where we are, using metaphors and symbols we will understand.

But I think those who connect with God will probably respond well to the symbols and metaphors of other cultures, as they are like archetypes, universal messages of the soul. I think therefore the mystics of Christianity and Judaism and Buddhism and Hinduism will be likely to understand each other and relate well on a soul-to-soul level. Love is pretty much the same in all cultures.

ELISABETH: How does all this fit with your own religious beliefs — hypnosis, previous lives, existing before this life with God?

JERRY: I think the near birth experience is the most direct experience I have of the teachings of Jesus that “The Kingdom of God, the Kingdom of Heaven, is within you.” The ideomotor signals take us directly to the authority which has the most rightful claim to be a guide for our lives. Rather than to let dogma or doctrine or someone else’s interpretation of the Bible or Holy Scripture tell us how we need to live our lives, we have access to a better source, our own soul, which in turn has memories of God and the experience of God to guide us. It is a very spiritual experience, and the best connect with our own soul that I have experienced so far.

ELISABETH: What is the main message of your book?

JERRY: It is that life has meaning, every life. We may have forgotten the purpose we chose before we came into this life, but it is there. No life is meaningless. We all have value and have a right to be treasured. We come from God, return to God, and this life is a chance to respond in a loving way to all beings, especially human beings. And, if we don’t, we get another chance!

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is Part I of a two-part interview with Jerry Bongard about his book, The Near Birth Experience: A Journey to the Center of Self. New York: Marlowe and Company, 2000