Just found out you are expecting a bundle of joy? What then are the first thoughts that come to you about birthing your baby?
A joyous, calm peaceful birthing? One where you and your partner lovingly welcome your baby into your arms after a short, empowering labour? Or is it one that has been spoon-fed to us by our mothers, friends and the media of a tortuous, lengthy labour full of pain, medication and medical intervention? Which would you prefer or more importantly, which would your baby prefer?
Generally it never enters our thoughts of birth that our baby might have an opinion about how the birthing should go.
Are babies even aware of their birthing? Generally it never enters our thoughts of birth that our baby might have an opinion about how the birthing should go. Studies have shown that babies are aware in utero of their experiences and do remember their birth. In the What Babies Want documentary by Debby Takikawa, twins studied in utero at twenty weeks are seen playing and poking each other through the amniotic sac. Their favorite game at one year-old was to position themselves on either side of a sheer curtain, poking and touching and laughing. Clearly they remembered their game from inside their mother's womb.
Babies in another study were ready a Dr. Suess story, ‘The Cat In The Hat’ every day starting at 20 weeks gestation. After birth, while being read the story by their mother, both their heart and respiration rate were lowered. Another high powered executive mom that was quite stressed during her pregnancy would rest every evening to her favorite sitcom on TV. Her baby was quite a fussy one and in desperation one evening, she sat down and turned on the sitcom, the baby calmed immediately. Easily understandable, this mom recorded that song and played it for her baby whenever he was fussy. One mom here in Singapore found her baby quite distressed, kicking her ribs furiously during Chinese New Year and the dragon dance drums. Clearly babies are aware.
So what would a baby want? What picture comes to your mind when you imagine a birthing? A cold sterile hospital, woman with her feet in stirrups, writhing in pain, screaming in agony? Bright lights, and as the baby emerges, the oxygen carrying cord being cut, rough rubbing to remove the vernix, weighed, measured, suctioned, and carted off to the nursery for observation while crying piteously? Is this the beginning a baby would want? Let's rewind this vision and replay with a more realistic picture of a baby's birthing day dream.
Babies want to be nurtured, loved and respected as do we all. An early start of bonding in utero with your child will provide a secure feeling of their being welcomed into our world. It will give them a reason to want to join us here. Pregnancies that are filled with parents fighting, mother afraid, affect the babies perception of the world as the above documentary also shows. They emerge worried that it will not be a safe place to be, as Joseph Chilton Pearce writes in Magical Child.
Planning for a welcoming birth assures the baby that meeting his/her needs is in your heart.
These babies actually have a different brain structure, one that has adapted to be able to cope in the world they are being born into. The babies who have been nurtured, loved and been told that they are welcome in our lives have brains that are functioning at a different capacity. What can you do to bond with your baby before it is born and are they truly aware? Babies at 9 weeks are hiccoughing, they hear at 20 weeks, they taste the amniotic fluid and are familiarizing themselves with your diet. Babies feel your emotions through the nueropeptides your body creates. How could we possibly think that they are not aware?
