Babies, Birth, Relationships and Love
An article written for Meta-Healthy Life online magazine
Our first relationships are within the womb when as a tiny bunch of cells we begin our journey in life. Many think of the developing embryo and fetus as an unconscious being. This is far from the truth.
Photo by Jimmy Conover
From the moment of conception we are conscious beings and are influenced by the world of our mother. And her mother, as we began as a cell when our mother was a three month fetus. We can look back even further if we consider that we chose our parents and plan our soul’s journey in this life. [1]
Love and relationships begin before conception
Working with clients (and with myself) as a META-Health and Matrix Reimprinting Practitioner, I have witnessed the impact of how our experience in utero and at birth influences our life, our relationships and our ability to give and receive love. I have also personally been back to my 8 week old fetus, and earlier to my conception, to the origin of my one core belief, and what this might mean in the family relationships I would be born into.
I have recently had the pleasure of training in Matrix Birth Reimprinting with its creator, Sharon King. As a neonatal nurse, midwife, mother, Matrix Reimprinting and META-Health practitioner, I have been following and incorporating Sharon’s work for some years.
Attending this training enabled me to go deeper in my understanding and ability to work with birth trauma and pre-conscious memories. Through going back to my own birth, I learnt why I have such a deep passion for enabling loving, gentle birth, keeping babies with their mothers and fathers and nurturing newborns skin to skin. [2]
Babies are conscious beings from the moment of conception and they remember their birth and time in utero [3], [4]. Every thought, feeling and emotion is recorded [5]. There are many research studies and countless birth reimprinting stories that show us this is repeatedly true.
Shaped by our birth
Our birth story makes a difference to us. It sets the stage for our experiences in life, how our brain develops, how we organise ourselves, and how we relate to our world.
Through my studies and research of the mind body brain social connection, I have learnt that our body knows what it needs, is always wise, and at all times, strives to maintain homeostasis. We respond to our environment through our senses and perceptions. These experiences create our thoughts, emotions, and beliefs and are not only in our mind and nervous system. Our brain releases chemical messages (neurotransmitters) that allow it to communicate with itself, and organ tissues. Our body bio-logically responds depending how we perceive the experience. So we are physically reacting, and changing, in response to the thoughts that run through our mind. This occurs at all stages of our development from a fetus in utero, to a new born baby and as we grow and become adults [6].
Hypnosis, Matrix Reimprinting [7], Reiki, and other therapies have taught us we can connect energetically through time and space with someone anywhere in the world and in our past. Tuning into and working with your little one during pregnancy can create learning, knowing and increased connection for both mother, father and baby. Post birth, early care can profoundly alter an infant throughout their life and effects of separation can be extensive. To a baby it is a life – death situation when separated from their mother. Separation disrupts an infant’s behaviour and development [8] and there is extensive research on its effects, especially if repeated. Effects not only for the infant, their mother, father and family, but also for society. Early stress also has the potential to alter gene expression.
Sharon King, author of ‘Heal your Birth, Heal your Life’ [9], writes of life long anxiety, hypervigilence, fear and shame, the inability to regulate ones’ emotions, an exaggerated stress response and decreased resilience, all relating back to separation at and around birth.
Gabor Maté [10], [11] also writes extensively on this subject and includes a long list of effects, especially if separation continues during early childhood. Depression; socio-moral immaturity; relationship problems; trust, low self esteem and attachment problems; disconnect with others; behavioural and learning issues; aggression, violence and addiction; a feeling of being disempowered, rejected, unloved, unwanted or abandoned which may even lead to mental illness and or suicide; physical illness such as asthma, high blood pressure, heart disease, and cancer. All can relate back to separation issues, many of which may have originated at our birth.
Further research shows us that our perception of our birth experience can impact on our decisions throughout life. For example, having our cord around our neck at birth, may create dislike as a child and adult for anything around our neck. If our labour was induced we may have boundary issues, feel unable to do things for ourselves and need someone to rescue us, or not know how to get started on a project. Forceps delivery can lead to issues with bonding, loss of trust, and a sense of intrusion or violence. And the list goes on [5].
META Health provides us with the knowledge of how our body will respond when a specific organ tissue is impacted. We know the theme of what is occurring and the phases that will be experienced as the body moves through the process of healing, in its return to health. For example, an infant reunited with his or her mother after being separated may develop the red, hot, itchy symptoms of eczema – a skin epidermis condition.
So I am asking some questions
Is the experience of your in utero relationships and birth affecting your life?
Or the life of your children?
Did you experience a traumatic event during your time in utero or when pregnant or during birth?
Is your birth experience influencing the decisions and choices you make in life?
Were you or your little one fearful or anxious during pregnancy and birth?
Studies show 80% of seven year children who were in utero during the Christchurch, New Zealand earthquakes, suffer from anxiety.
If any of these questions, or many others I have not asked, bring up memories or trigger you in any way, remember, we (and our parents and those involved in our birth) were doing the best we could with the knowledge and understanding we had at that time [5].
Dr Sears [12] and many others write of the “sensitive period” at birth when mothers and newborns are uniquely programmed to be in contact with each other and do good things to each other.
Enabling skin to skin nurturing at birth, during the neonatal period and beyond, is my greatest love for infants and their parents. I have written a series of four articles on this and continue to expand this opportunity for newborn infants and parents in my work as a neonatal nurse within Special Care Baby Unit (Nelson, New Zealand).
Through my neonatal nursing work I was fortunate to attend a one day seminar with Nils Bergman, the worlds leading authority on skin to skin. Backed by extensive ongoing research we know this is what every newborn infant requires and deserves.
Relationships that began before and in utero, are cemented further within the psyche of the infant and mother (and father) at birth. I deeply and passionately believe loving gentle birth is the way forward for mankind.
For those who were unable to experience this and loving vibrations during their time in utero, Matrix Birth Reimprinting gives us the opportunity to go back. To give our little self a voice to say and do what they needed to do, in every moment of trauma, big or small. To connect and form a loving bond with their mother, father and significant other. The impact of this on our life is profound. We are social beings and need our family, our community, and one another in our world.
Life is meant to be a journey of discovery, to find the learning from our experiences so we can evolve as conscious beings. This starts before our birth.
I am hopeful that in teaching and writing, I can share my experience and research with others, so it will become the norm to honour and respect the dynamic connection between an infant, their mother, their father and family.
Want to read more?
I invite you to follow these link to the full articles on Why Newborn Babies Need Skin to Skin Nurturing Part 1. Part 2. Part 3. Part 4. Matrix Birth Reimprinting.
References
1. Schwartz, R. (2012). Your Soul’s Plan: Discovering the Real Meaning of the Life You Planned Before You Were Born. Whispering Winds Press: USA
2. Hansen. G. (2018). Matrix Birth Reimprinting
3. Chamberlain, D. B. (2013). Windows to the Womb. North Atlantic Books: Berkeley.
4. Chamberlain, D.B. (2015). pathwaystofamilywellness.org/New-Edge-Science/babies-remember-birth.html
5. King, S. (2018), Personal communication. Matrix Birth Reimprinting Training, Gold Coast Australia
6. Hansen, G. (2017). Why Newborn Babies Need Skin to Skin Nurturing – Part Two
7. matrixreimprinting.com/
8. Bergman, N. (2016). http://skin2skincontact.com/what-is-ssc/ssc-is-biology/ And a one day seminar with Nils Bergman I had the pleasure to attend.
9. King, S. (2015). Heal Your Birth, Heal Your Life. Silverwood: Bristol.
10. Mate, G. (2011). Dr. Gabor Mate on Attachment and Conscious Parenting
11. Mate, G. (2011). When the Body Says No. John Wiley & Sons: New Jersey
12. Sears, W. (2017). attachmentparenting.org/support/articles/bonding