3
Connecting Begins Long Before Baby’s Birth
This chapter and the next two will be about the most fascinating facts that science has revealed about pregnancy and childbirth, and the moments and days immediately after. It will also look at what you can do to provide a deep foundation of wellbeing and trust for your child that will last for life. The way we welcome a new life into the world is at the very core of emotional intelligence and the way the child will view the world as she grows up.
Can we?
Pregnancy? Birth? What on earth do they have to do with a child’s emotional health? Aren’t we starting a little too early here? How can a parent have any influence on a child’s emotional health when the child is still in the womb? We can’t communicate with an unborn child, surely.
Up until the last twenty years most people have not regarded little babies as fully-fledged people, capable of feeling all the same feelings as adults. That notion is certainly changing, but would you think of a foetus as a person that thinks, feels and remembers? Have you ever stopped to think about this?
Very few parenting books and courses talk about parenting as something that begins early in pregnancy. But it does. Connection with your baby begins, for both parents, while the baby is still in the womb. In fact, a child’s distinct emotional make-up begins to develop long before birth.
Why have so many people overlooked the emotional needs of the unborn and the newly born child? Until very recently, paediatricians thought that babies are not in control of their awareness at birth, that their minds are a jumble of disorganised and meaningless sensations. The idea that newborns are able to communicate, to interact with their parents and understand them was not generally accepted, though many parents intuited otherwise. For a long time, the only concern about a newborn has been for the baby’s medical safety. The mother’s feelings at birth did not seem to matter all that much, as these would – it was thought – in no way affect the baby’s wellbeing. As long as mother and baby survive the medical ‘emergency’ of birth, then the job’s done.
Modern research has overturned this perception. Science has now confirmed the reality of the mind and feelings of the unborn child, made it quite clear that a baby’s life experiences in the womb can have a powerful, long-term impact on the emotional centres of the brain, and on the baby’s personality. Now we know that all along, babies have been conscious, intelligent and feeling, and trying their hearts out to communicate with us. A baby’s life in the womb is full of emotion, and a baby’s birth and the first moments afterwards are profoundly important. These very first experiences of the world, tell the baby what can be expected from human relationships – and first impressions really count. Our culture, for a long time, told us that newborns were not people, just people-to-be, blobs with no personality. Most mothers, going against the tide of what they have been told, feel intuitively that this is not the case.
Do these early connections really matter?
So maybe we can have a meaningful connection with a baby before, during and after birth. But surely this doesn’t have a lasting impact, does it? They are still so little. They couldn’t possibly understand anything. That’s what we thought. Yet countless mothers and fathers have somehow known that they could, an idea that was generally dismissed owing to lack of scientific evidence – until recently. Today, science has backed up that age-old intuition: your relationship with your unborn child is every bit as consequential as your relationship with your baby, toddler or child – and probably more so. This means that there is a lot you can do to nurture your baby’s emotional health from the early days of pregnancy. Even if you don’t know you’re doing it, you influence your child’s emotional intelligence in the womb. Active parenting, we now know, begins around conception, and you make a huge difference in your child’s life right from then.
Do you remember being born?
Most people feel that they couldn’t possibly remember being born, and yet many people around the world have remembered some aspects of their birth. For over a century now, psychologists and psychiatrists, with the use of hypnosis or body-oriented psychotherapies, have documented patients’ birth memories that arise in psychotherapy. Many more have been surprised by birth memories while in deep meditation, while witnessing the birth of a child or in a host of other circumstances. Children have often spontaneously recalled their birth and been able to retell it to their parents in vivid detail. I have spoken to a number of parents who are gobsmacked by the accuracy of their toddlers’ memories of birth, despite the fact that the details had never been discussed in front of them. People who have them, tend to keep such memories under wraps, rather than face denial or ridicule.
Alex — An anecdote
When attending an intensive course on meditation, Alex shared with the group a life-changing vision that came to him during one of his deepest meditations. One early morning as Alex was enjoying a profoundly peaceful and relaxed state, an image came to him of a flesh-coloured sun dawning over a horizon. As the orb reached halfway out, an unknown force pushed it back beneath the edge. This sun dawned a second time, only to be submerged again. On its third attempt, it was finally released from whatever held it prisoner, and at last claimed the sky. As soon as this vision was complete, Alex was flooded with feelings of relief, love and elation so overwhelming he dissolved into tears.
Oblivious to the meaning of this waking dream, Alex left his home to go about his business. For the rest of the day and wherever he went, he felt waves of the most inexplicable love and compassion for every person, friend or stranger, he passed. Alex had no idea what was happening to him.
Some days later, while recounting his strange but beautiful experience to his mother, her eyes misted over and she began to tell him a story she had never shared. When Alex was being born, he had begun to arrive so quickly that the obstetrician had not yet made it to the delivery room. The anxious nurses, when seeing his head beginning to crown twice pushed him back for fear of undermining the obstetrician’s strict control. Finally, the doctor arrived; at Alex’s third attempt, he was released into the world. Unbeknown to him, Alex had always carried this memory of his stifled entry into the world. The oppressive restraint upon his birth impulse had marked him emotionally, somewhat dampened his spirit and inhibited his passion. Note how after reliving his birth, though only in a symbolic way, Alex experienced a most uplifting emotional release. The release of emotions associated with his birth freed Alex quite considerably to live and love more fully from that day on.
Birgit — An anecdote
Birgit was enjoying a deep-tissue massage; on this day her practitioner was working deeply into her neck and head, where she had long been complaining of tension. As the masseur was mobilising and stretching her head, Birgit began to feel teary, and soon she was sobbing. Unexpectedly, a birth memory had come back to her of being yanked by the head with forceps, then immediately separated from her mother and placed in a crib. The fear and the grief she had felt as a newborn resurfaced, triggered by the neck and head massage. This memory and the emotional release that came with it helped Birgit to better understand the feelings of anguish and separateness that had often plagued her throughout her life. It also helped Birgit to enjoy a more intimate and satisfying connection with her husband.
Do you remember anything about your own birth? If, like most people, you feel that you don’t, then notice how you feel when you see photos or film of normal, natural birth. Do these images touch off any feelings for you – such as gladness, joy, wonder, affection, fear, disgust, revulsion or anger? The feelings that such imagery brings up for you are quite possibly triggered from your personal store of emotional memory, and may have a lot to do with what you and/or your mother felt at some time when you were being born.
One of the world’s foremost psychotherapists specialising in healing birth trauma, and a leading expert on birth memory, is Californian psychologist David Chamberlain PhD. Many of the detailed memories of birth recaptured by his patients have been corroborated by their family members or confirmed as accurate after reviewing hospital records.
Are we sure a foetus knows what’s going on?
If you have any doubts that a foetus and a newborn have a working mind, then let’s look at what scientists have only recently discovered about the abilities of a foetus.
By week six in the womb, instruments can detect the earliest measurable electrical activity in the child’s brain.
By week twelve, the foetus is able to feel pain.
By week fifteen, the foetus has learnt to swallow the amniotic fluid he is floating in. He can discern taste, and even show preferences. If a bitter substance is injected into the womb, he stops swallowing. If saccharine is injected, he doubles the rate of swallowing.
By the fourth month, the foetus can teach herself to aim her thumb into her mouth and suck it.
Your baby can hear your voice from around twenty weeks into the pregnancy.
Between the sixth and seventh months, the foetal brain is mature enough to support conscious awareness and to feel a range of emotions. Brainwave readings show that the foetus can now respond to what he sees, touches and hears. One of the most amazing discoveries is that all the wiring necessary to store memory is available in the foetal brain from the third trimester.
We have to come to terms with the idea that we all have some kind of memory since before birth, and that this memory must affect us all in some way.
By the time your baby is born, she has already learnt to recognise the voice of her parents. French researchers have found that newborns can accurately pick out their mother’s voice from a field of other voices. If the father has been close to the mother during pregnancy, the newborn can already identify his voice too. Lullabies that you sing or music you play to your baby in the womb will have a more calming effect after birth. Experiments show that babies even respond to stories that they heard you read when they were in the womb. At the university of North Carolina, researchers asked pregnant mothers to regularly read The Cat in The Hat by Dr Seuss out loud. Soon after birth, these babies were given a rubber teat that was electronically connected to a tape player that played recordings of their mother’s voice. By varying the speed of sucking, the baby could change the recorded stories playing – and they showed a consistent preference for the familiar one, the one they had learnt in their mother’s womb. Why does our time in the womb and our birth affect us so much? Whenever I travel, or go to a restaurant or stay in a hotel it strikes me how much effort the tourism and hospitality industries put into making sure that, as a consumer, I feel warmly welcomed. Cabin crew in planes, reception staff and table waiters all go out of their way to beam at me, pull out chairs for me, offer to serve me and generally impress me with how happy they are to see me. Millions of dollars in training are funnelled into making us feel special, wherever we go. Granted, much of this feels false and contrived, and yet, don’t we all feel let down, ripped-off, angry and unloved when we are met with indifference or lack of warmth? We expect, nay, demand, to be made to feel welcome, that we are wanted. We pay for it.
How does the local hospital greet the newly born? If we adults are so sensitive to the way we are greeted, why don’t we extend the same kind of care to our newborns as they enter the world and their new lives and meet their family for the very first time? Isn’t this all the more important for a newborn, who is infinitely more sensitive than an adult?
Think about it: now that it cannot be denied that infants are fully aware, feeling and wide awake before, during and after birth, how do you suppose some of our modern birthing procedures would make them feel? After spending months in a cosy, perfectly nourishing cocoon, with all sounds muffled and all lights gently dimmed, how would their eyes feel when they first meet the blazing lights of the labour ward? How would their delicate ears take the noisy, reverberating chatter and clatter of the delivery room? What is it like, from a baby’s point of view, to be artificially evicted from home with the use of drugs, to have metal forceps clamping on his skull and tugging at his neck, to be taken from his mother and handled by strangers, to be tested, weighed and measured, placed in a plastic box, suddenly alone for the first time? What would it feel like to arrive into a room full of people who are all talking to each other but ignoring you, no matter how you plead with them. If people around you don’t know that you can feel, think and communicate, it is as if they deny you are a person. How does that make you feel as an adult? Imagine then, how does it feel for a newborn? If, as most people, you do not have immediate memories of your birth, take a few moments to imagine this scenario, live it through in your mind. How would it make you feel if that was your introduction to the world? What does this kind of experience teach the baby about the world they have come into? How does that prepare a newborn to trust people?
On the other hand, what it is like for a baby to be held warmly, to be talked to softly, to be able to extend one’s arms and legs for the very first time, to feel one’s lungs expand with air, to gaze at mother’s loving face for the first time? What was it like for us to envelop our mother’s nipple with our lips for the first time, to suckle and have our mouths and bellies generously filled with this delicious liquid?
Think about this: if you are a mother, this is your baby’s first sensory experience of you, her first impression of the world. This first connection is the foundation on which emotional intelligence is built. When a newborn feels acknowledged, wanted and communicated with, it makes the difference between feeling that she exists for others or that she is all alone in the world.
DID YOU KNOW?
An American sculptor recently did a survey of art from around the world spanning the last 700 years, searching for sculptures of pregnant women that actually showed the baby curled up inside. To his great surprise, he was able to find no more than one such example, a mediaeval piece entitled The Visitation. His own works of prenatal art depicting the unborn child were, for many years – until very recently – turned down, often with considerable contempt, by all the galleries he approached. Why is pregnancy, and in particular the reality of the foetus, so taboo?
In 1952 Lucille Ball, the world famous American sitcom star, was banned from saying the word ‘pregnant’ on television, under the Hollywood codes for public morals. Not long ago, an Australian television host who had been popular with viewers for many years, took the unprecedented step of continuing in her role while pregnant with her first child. Her show was flooded with angry letters of complaint from viewers who found her protruding belly ‘disgusting’; debates about the ‘inappropriateness’ of her stance raged throughout the media. When Hollywood actress Demi Moore posed naked – and very pregnant – for Vanity Fair in August 1991, she caused an uproar, and many stores in the USA refused to stock the issue.
These attitudes have begun to change in recent decades; increasingly, we see women happily exposing their pregnant bellies at the beach or through revealing clothing in the streets, shops and cafés. Why did the sight of a pregnant woman for so long make so many people squeamish? What does this say about how many of us have been taught to feel towards mothers, the unborn child, the miracle of creation? Could we not instead view pregnancy as something magical and beautiful?
Birth, as Nature designed it
It is only over the last two decades that scientists have come to understand how truly astonishing and delicately balanced is Nature’s grand design for loving connections. Under normal and natural circumstances, when a mother is giving birth, an extraordinary transformative process is unfolding in her body that will prime her and her baby for some of the most profound emotional changes; making them both wide open to, quite literally, falling in love at first sight. The mother’s brain, in the moments leading up to, during and immediately after birth, orchestrates the massive release of a cocktail of hormones specifically tailored to induce some of the most profound feelings of love, bonding and nurturance. A similar spike in these hormones affects the baby, released in the baby’s own brain, as well as received directly from the mother through the placenta. There is no other time in our lives when these brain chemicals are released in such huge quantities. If the natural process of birth is supported and not interfered with, these chemicals have the power to lull the mother and child into a blissful state of communion.
Why does this remarkable emotional phenomenon happen? Nature does not go to so much trouble just to give us bonuses; it is far too wise and economical for that. This transcendent and life-changing emotional event must have a vital purpose. It is designed to bond the mother and child, fill them with love for each other and prepare them for healthy attachment. Nature has planned for millennia to make parenting as pleasurable and joyous as possible, and provides all the ingredients necessary – we just have to trust this plan. The mother-child connection is the cornerstone of a harmonious society, and the health of this connection depends on it being largely pleasurable and happy. The mother–child connection is also the starting point for our emotional intelligence, for the way we relate to all others as we grow. No wonder Nature has invested so much of its ingenuity to forge this bond and imbue it with blissful emotion. Let’s take a closer look at some of these marvellous hormones and what they can do for the mother and child.
Oxytocin
Oxytocin, naturally released in huge quantities before, during and after birth, has been dubbed the ‘hormone of love’. Oxytocin produces intense, loving feelings and speeds up labour by increasing contractions. Additionally, oxytocin plays a role in reducing the mother’s pain. After birth, oxytocin induces nurturing behaviour in the mother. If you want to keep revelling in those blissful, loving and maternal feelings, here is a helpful hint: you can maintain quite high oxytocin levels through direct skin-to-skin contact with your baby, so if after birth your instincts tell you to keep your newborn close to you, go with it. In hospitals they call this ‘rooming in’; you will find that the old practice of taking the baby away so the mother can ‘rest’ is quickly disappearing. Medical authorities and psychologists are beginning to realise how important these primal moments of bonding are, for the mother’s and the baby’s emotional health.
Prolactin
This hormone, also released in the mother’s body in high quantities, brings about tender mothering behaviour.
Beta-endorphin
Beta-endorphin, a naturally occurring opiate, is known as the hormone of pleasure and transcendence. It induces dependency feelings, and helps mother and baby to feel deeply connected and attached to each other. Beta-endorphin is also analgesic, meaning that it is able to reduce the mother’s labour pains. Many women have described the effects of beta-endorphin as an altered or transcendent state of consciousness, an ecstatic, trance-like state of mind. If mothers are given the space to surrender to this trance-like state, and if they are not pressured into remaining rational and engaged in conversation, the levels of this beneficial hormone will remain high, and so assist the birth process enormously. In other words, we should cut the chit-chat, especially during the later stages of labour, and let the mother focus on herself.
Noradrenaline
There are temporary surges of noradrenaline in the baby and the mother immediately after birth, and for an hour or so this makes them both alert and wide awake. The baby’s pupils dilate to meet the mother’s eyes directly, and so they get to know each other. This noradrenaline peak gradually wears off until the newborn falls asleep, having fulfilled the need to bond with her beloved. For decades scientists have observed this brief but critical postnatal period of ‘imprinting’, Nature’s way of showing the baby who her mother is.
Michael Odent, Sarah Buckley, Binnie Dansby and other experts describe this combination of hormones as an ‘ecstatic cocktail’. Many mothers also say, particularly after a natural childbirth, that they are overcome with elation, and with uncontainable love and tenderness. Like a hormonal version of Cupid’s arrow, this is Nature’s way of helping mother and baby fall helplessly in love – an experience that has the power to transform their relationship for life. The intense feelings generated – probably unlike anything the mother has experienced, or will experience again beyond another labour – provide the mother with a deep reservoir of emotional fuel for the challenging venture that awaits her, while marking the new relationship with the most delicious sentiment, right from day one. When conditions are favourable and the birthing process is natural, the resulting rapture can nourish the parenting connection forever, helping both parents tune in more closely to the child’s needs.
All of us who are involved with the birth of a child – parents, extended family, friends and health professionals – should be doing everything possible to provide the conditions that ensure the maximum free flow of these wondrous brain chemicals. Further on, we will be looking at some of the specific ways that family and friends can support new parents.
When this natural hormonal process proceeds uninterrupted, it provides for the baby a deep well of good feelings and a foundation of trust in life and love that can reverberate for a lifetime. It is, literally, a happy birth day, the forerunner of many happy returns. A natural and lovingly supported birth gives the baby an injection of emotional wellness that paves the way for strength, resilience, self-esteem and ability to love and be loved. It’s as if the child’s mind will always be silently murmuring: I was received with so much love and joy, so I must be very lovable, and people are lovable. When this is our core attitude towards ourselves and towards each other, our relationships will reflect this mood. Because these inaugural moments of life are recorded in the child’s brain as emotional memory, their effects can be far-reaching and life-long.
The newborn’s earliest images of his mother and his first experience of the outside world give him a point of reference for later relationships. The emotional memories associated with this primal life stage form the basic model of relationships through which we view and interpret relationships. Here are sown the very first seeds of the child’s emotional intelligence. That’s why it is so important to surround mothers with loving support during pregnancy, to aim as much as possible towards a natural and sensitively managed birth, and to make sacred the bonding process that is to follow.
Early connections that last a lifetime
Here is where the rewards of a respectfully, sensitively managed birth get really exciting. When the hormones of birth are allowed to work their magic, your baby has a far greater chance of becoming a content and smiling baby, one who falls asleep more easily and is more readily comforted through her connection with you. This cannot be emphasised often enough: pregnancy, birth and the moments afterwards are the greatest investment in your future together.
When the primal connection is compromised
There are many different things that typically interfere with Nature’s best intentions. Mothers do not have a rhinoceros hide, particularly at the time of birth, and the right hormonal balance is highly susceptible to the mother’s emotional state. Labour wards can be alienating. The atmosphere of emergency surrounding some hospital-managed births, the cold and clinical ambience, the bright lights and unfamiliar people in masks and gowns, the mother’s loss of control when the obstetrician runs the show – any of these factors can stress and alarm many birthing mothers. An intimidating environment produces stress hormones that inhibit the flow of the joyous and analgesic hormones mentioned earlier. Fear produces adrenalin, which interrupts oxytocin, and this can cause complications and slow down labour or, in some cases, even stop it.
Australian childbirth expert and author Dr Sarah Buckley (2005) says that ‘anything that disturbs a labouring woman’s sense of safety and privacy will disrupt the birthing process’, which means that birth complications can at times be due to the mother’s emotional needs – her needs for support, trust, privacy, and most of all her need to have control over the process – not being met.
The impacts of the medicalisation of birth
There are doubtless many situations that warrant intervention to protect the health or even the life of the mother or baby; however, these days we interfere with natural and healthy birthing processes far too much and too often, and this comes at a price to the whole family.
Artificial painkillers such as morphine, for instance, can interfere with the joyful experience by suppressing oxytocin release. The use of opiates such as pethidine decreases the natural release of beta-endorphins, dulling any of the pleasurable and joyous feelings that can be associated with birth. Of course, the pain of labour is undeniable – all the more reason why it should be balanced with the rewards provided by the natural hormones.
Because it drastically reduces natural oxytocin production – oxytocin produces the contractions of labour – epidural pain relief also increases the likelihood of instrument delivery by forceps or vacuum delivery; it also lengthens labour.
Drugs delivered by epidural injection reduce postnatal levels of all the euphoric hormones, and this can have a negative impact on mothering. Remember, bonding is made easier through the joyful feelings.
Drugs at birth are costly to the baby as well, with consequences that are physical as well as emotional. Drugs used to induce labour can, for example, interfere with breastfeeding. They can weaken the baby’s suckling reflex, which diminishes the amount and duration of breastfeeding. Mothers who have had an epidural are more likely to report that they don’t seem to produce enough milk.
Since mother and child are still connected through the umbilical cord, drugs administered to the mother also enter the baby’s body, where they can play havoc with the newborn’s nervous system. Some effects immediately after birth have been noted: under the influence of these drugs babies seem less alert, listless and uncommunicative. They fail to connect with their mothers, don’t meet their gaze and are less available for bonding. This effect can last for a while: the baby can appear less responsive for the first month of life. High-level epidural exposure makes babies more irritable and difficult to settle through the first few weeks; it is not uncommon for their mothers to describe them during this period as ‘more difficult’.
Other effects have been detected years later, probably the result of early re-programming of the child’s brain. The use of opiates at birth has even been associated with opiate addiction in young adults.
In caesarean delivery, the peaks of all those hormones are wiped out, for both mother and baby. Sarah Buckley (2005: 224) states: ‘Vaginal delivery [as opposed to caesarean delivery] is associated with peak levels of at least four feel-good hormones, which contribute to mother–infant bonding as well as safety for mother and baby.’
In our haste to sanitise labour and bring the peaks and troughs of sensation and emotion under strict control, we have crushed the most primal, the most awe-inspiring connection. The ripple effects of undermining this cornerstone of emotional intelligence can be felt in the mother–child relationship for a long time. The foundations of loving relationships need to be better protected, and birthing rites need to be held more sacred. If we are to cater for children’s emotional intelligence as devotedly as we cater for their survival and their bodily health, we need to reconsider the trend for defensive obstetrics and pay better attention to the very real emotional needs of the foetus and the newborn.
It troubles me to realise that this information may seem unfair for parents who have already gone through a very unnatural birth, or those who have no choice owing to insurmountable medical reasons. Obstetric intervention will always have its place, but now that we are faced with so much new information about the vital psychological needs of birthing mothers and their babies, it would be wrong to hold back this knowledge – especially as there is so much to be gained from putting it into practice. If an unborn child or a newborn has to go through a scary process, then we are far better off understanding what she feels so we can respond appropriately to any later emotional reactions. It is early days yet, but we are entering an era that will see many reforms to the way children are conceived, carried and birthed.
If the mother has been robbed of the natural hormonal surges because of a medical emergency, or because of difficult circumstances surrounding labour, all is not lost. There is good news. Nature has provided us with many opportunities to heal, and catch up on the sweet feelings of closeness that are every baby’s birthright. Breastfeeding, direct, skin-to-skin contact with the baby and loving eye contact all produce the very same hormones, helping mother and baby to relax into an adoring connection. When there has been an emotional wound, connection heals it. Connection is the key.
Over the next several chapters we will see many ways in which healing can happen at every stage of childhood.
Dianne — An anecdote
Dianne, a mother of three, gave birth to her first daughter in 1955 in the USA. When delivering her first baby, Dianne was placed under what she later thought to be a general anaesthetic. When she awoke hours later, she could hardly believe she had given birth, as she had experienced none of the labour. Much to her consternation, she felt totally estranged from her baby when the nurse brought her from the crib. At first, she found it difficult to trust that this was indeed her baby, as she had not been there to see her born. Could the hospital have made an error and accidentally given her the wrong baby?
It took Dianne about three months to feel that she had bonded with her child. Their first weeks together contained none of the joy that Dianne had dreamt of and her baby would have needed. As she was to find out later, it was then a common procedure in the USA to administer Twilight Sleep, a combination of morphine to dim the pain of labour and scopolamine to prevent any memory of it. Dianne felt robbed of her chance to participate in bringing her daughter into the world, and of the joy of attachment in the first few months together. The desire on the part of the hospital staff to eliminate pain meant that the baby’s and mother’s emotional needs were sacrificed.
ATTITUDES TO MOTHERS’ PAIN IN LABOUR – A BRIEF HISTORY
For hundreds of years, church authorities insisted that the pain of labour was God’s punishment to all women for Eve’s first transgression against God and her corruption of Man. All women were henceforth expected to bear the pain for their inherited sin. St Augustine taught that ‘Whatever comes into being by natural birth is bound by original sin.’ Martin Luther maintained that the pain and danger of pregnancy, childbirth and motherhood are punishment for women’s sin, and suggested they should think of this as a ‘a happy and joyful punishment’, in other words, it serves you right, so grin and bear it.
In colonial America influential hellfire preacher Cotton Mather taught that pregnancy was a time to consider the wrath of God and repent. How would it make a mother feel, as she is bringing her child into the world, to be held in such contempt by her community? How would this emotional environment have affected each baby born?
In 1846 James Simpson, a Scottish physician, promoted the use of chloroform to relieve the pain of childbirth. Unaware of any possible negative side effects, Simpson’s concern was to alleviate suffering. This was opposed by the church, citing Genesis 3: 16 – ‘I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children.’ It would seem that cruelty to women and children has been a basic building block of our society for a long, long time.
Things were a little more liberal in Massachusetts, where, only two years later, Dr Walter Channing of Boston was spared the religious interference met by Simpson, and so was able to begin to use ether for pain relief in childbirth.
The emerging commitment to relieve women’s suffering certainly represents the evolution of a more caring, more humane – or should I say, less brutal? – society. Interestingly, strict control over what had been up until the mid-nineteenth century a women’s domain was seized by a male-dominated medical profession. As orthodox medicine took over, childbirth increasingly adopted the feel of a perilous medical emergency, something wrong, that posed grave risks to the mother. Midwives, with all their natural expertise and gentle methods, were increasingly sidelined. Childbirth was taken well out of women’s hands.
At first, the central characteristic of childbirth was punishment. Gradually, this was replaced, so that the central feature of childbirth came to be thought of as danger. Collectively, we are still not accustomed to thinking of childbirth as natural and beautiful. One would have to be naïve to imagine that such a fearful collective perception of childbirth would not influence how labour unfolds. Our attitudes have a major impact on outcomes. If so many women have been made to feel ashamed, terrified and powerless as they are whisked into the labour ward, could this have increased the rate of obstetric complications?
In 1915 Chicago obstetrician Dr Joseph DeLee, author of The Principles and Practice of Obstetrics, the most frequently used obstetric textbook of his time, argued that childbirth is a pathologic process from which few mothers escape some kind of damage. The idea that childbirth is normal was given its death blow. In an article published in the first issue of the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, DeLee advised complete medical control over labour, as a result of which an armoury of routine interventions were imposed, including sedation, episiotomy, forceps delivery, extraction of the placenta and medications for the uterus to contract. All these interventions prescribed by DeLee did eventually become routine.
Today we understand that the hormones associated with intense fear can slow contractions and even stop labour. Is the fear-mongering surrounding childbirth fulfilling its own prophecy? A relaxed and well-supported mother naturally secretes more of the hormones that accelerate labour and reduce pain. Could it be that rethinking labour as normal and natural is the best medicine?
Certainly, there has been some progress and effort to make obstetric procedures less invasive, and infant and maternal mortality rates have been reduced. But there is still one important element missing: we have barely begun to care for the psychological needs of mother and baby, not before, during or after birth. Medical and psychological needs should not eclipse each other, and we need to strike a better balance between the two. In the following chapter we will be looking at some remarkable and proven drug-free approaches to managing and reducing the pain of labour.
DID YOU KNOW?
‘The World Health Organization (WHO) states that “There is no justification for any region to have a higher rate [of caesareans] than 10–15 per cent” ’ (‘Appropriate Technology for Birth’, Lancet, 1985, 2(8452): 436–7). In Australia in 1993, the caesarean rate shot up from 19 per cent, to 27 per cent. Also, in 2002, 37.8 per cent of Australian mothers experienced an operative delivery (caesarean section, forceps or vacuum delivery), one of the highest rates in the world. In the USA the rate was 32 per cent, in the UK 33 per cent and in Canada 34.9 per cent.
The emotional effect of our primal experiences
Primal health is a new field of study that looks at the long-term effects of pregnancy, birth and the first few postnatal months on individuals’ physical and psychological health. A lot of research has been carried out at hospitals and universities around the world – the USA, Canada, Germany, France, Sweden, Holland, Finland, Japan, Israel, Australia – resulting in the accumulation of a huge database, Primal Health Databank, that tells us much about this fundamental aspect of emotional health.
As a response to this growing awareness of how deeply the primal stage can affect us in body and mind, the International Society of Prenatal and Perinatal Psychology and Medicine was formed in Vienna in 1986, and the Association for Prenatal and Perinatal Psychology and Health in the USA and Canada in 1983.
The way a child feels while still in the womb has a major impact on the child’s emotional make-up, and this influences his attitudes, moods, emotional responses and relationships well into adulthood. Mothers’ emotional states are passed by hormones through the placenta directly to the baby. Her more intense or persistent feelings have a strong effect on how the foetus feels. Little wonder that when expectant mothers are severely stressed, when they feel unsupported or alone, these feelings can show up in the child’s behaviour long after birth. The greatest influence on the unborn child’s feelings is the mother’s emotional state. The foetus appears to feel her mother’s feelings as if they were her own. When, for example, the mother is highly stressed, the foetus’s heart rate goes up, the blood flow to her brain is altered, and she becomes jumpy and restless. Occasional stresses are no cause for concern, but when a mother’s stress is unending, overwhelming or traumatic, it can impinge on the baby’s neurological development, with possible lifelong emotional consequences.
Traumatic births or heavy maternal stress during pregnancy can also be linked to a broad range of psychological problems, including mild behavioural problems, such as fussy babies who are harder to settle, and in more severe cases (eventually), violence, depression, ADHD, autism, schizophrenia or substance abuse. We can’t say that prenatal or birth traumas are the single cause of such problems, but they can be contributing factors.
When, on the other hand, the unborn and newborn child feels wanted, when the mother talks lovingly to her, a profound contentment envelops her, preparing for her a strong foundation of inner security and emotional health. This is the very first building block of emotional intelligence. Though it may always remain unconscious, the emotional memory of feeling safe, wanted and loved, sensitively handled at birth and thereafter, underwrites a person’s ability to access feelings of joy and love throughout life. It is impossible to overestimate how much you can influence your child’s future emotional intelligence through the way you treat yourselves, each other and your unborn child.
PREGNANT WOMEN AND 9/11
In 2005, professor of psychiatry Rachel Yehuda and professor of molecular medicine Jonathan Seckl published a study of pregnant mothers who suffered post-traumatic stress as a result of witnessing or being directly affected by the September 11, 2001 bombings in New York. The stress suffered by their unborn children as a direct result of the mothers’ stress was clearly evident in abnormal levels of the stress hormone cortisol one year after birth. This effect was particularly strong if the mothers were into the third trimester of pregnancy at the time of the event. These mothers should have received ample counselling immediately after the trauma to help them and their unborn children.
Why are some babies more ‘fussy’ than others?
To many hapless parents it comes as a crushing disappointment to find that life with their new baby is too often an ordeal. Their babies seem to be so hard to settle or comfort, they struggle to fall asleep and are easily woken, they cry disconsolately for ages – and the parents feel exhausted, angry and plagued by doubts about their own adequacy. Moments of joy seem few and far between, and parenting soon becomes a duty rather than a pleasure. Until recently, these babies were dismissively branded as ‘difficult’ or ‘fussy’, as if this were an innate aspect of their temperament – just the luck of the genetic draw. Based on this point of view, either the parent or the baby gets the blame, and neither is helped.
The fact is that the baby’s ‘fussy nature’ is a genuine emotional response; if we care to listen we will hear that we are being told something important. Today, there is mounting evidence that trauma during pregnancy or birth can leave the baby with a residue of anxiety and anger that makes her over-reactive.
Gwyneth — An anecdote
When Gwyneth gave birth to twin boys, unexpected birth complications prolonged labour for the second twin, causing him and Gwyneth considerable stress. It wasn’t long before Gwyneth noticed how differently the two infant boys responded to the world around them. The one who had been stuck at birth cried a lot more, was less easily comforted and generally appeared hypersensitive in comparison to his more placid brother.
Gwyneth was unusually fortunate in that her older sister, Amanda, whose children were already grown, lived nearby and had plenty of time on her hands. Since they both suspected that the second twin’s irritability might have been the result of the difficult birth, Amanda offered to lend her support. Often, when the baby would seem impossible to comfort, she would be on hand to hold him, rock him and walk him around the house. Both sisters had resolved to do everything in their power, for as long as it took, to help the stressed twin to release the emotions associated with the frightening memory of his birth. Their instincts were telling them that he needed to be lovingly held for as long as it took him to, quite literally, cry it all out.
Although this lasted a few months, the sisters’ commitment paid off. Eventually, the more troubled twin found the same contentment that his brother had enjoyed all along.
A note of caution: If your baby seems unable to respond to soothing, you may need to consult your GP or paediatrician to ensure that there are no hidden medical reasons for your baby’s distress. Only if your baby’s physical needs (warmth, cleanliness, nutrition, health) are taken care of can you deduce that her distress is emotional
What can be done to heal birth trauma?
We should never label a baby as ‘fussy’ or ‘difficult’ – in doing so, we risk characterising him and creating the conditions for a self-fulfilling prophecy. Based on what we know today about primal health, it’s about time we considered the real possibility that there is no such thing as an inherently difficult baby. It’s not the baby that’s difficult. We, the parents, have difficulty understanding and meeting baby’s needs, particularly if we don’t feel supported enough ourselves or if the baby has gone through a rough patch in the womb, at birth or soon afterwards. There are no ‘difficult babies’, but there are babies who are by nature a little more sensitive, and babies who need to express a lot of hurt and trauma. How do we help them so that these feelings won’t remain to affect their behaviour for the long term?
The main thing to remember is that whenever there has been hurt or trauma, connection heals. Healing is possible only when the baby’s feelings are validated – in this they are the same as us, the adults. As long as we are convinced that our baby is ‘difficult’, or trying to be ‘manipulative’ – as many people believe – we are unlikely to behave with the sensitivity and tenderness that can make all the difference. Babies feel connected to you when they understand that you hear their voice, that you take in how strongly they are feeling and that you are willing to respond – if only to stay near them. The most powerful tools of healing are naturally available to any mother or father, in fact to any loving adult. Listening. Touching. Holding. Gentle rocking. Soft singing. Any or all of these ways to connect with your baby can change their world for them. Neuropsychologists tell us that loving human touch can trigger the secretion of feel-good brain chemicals, such as oxytocin. Sometimes, this will bring immediate relief; other times babies need to cry for prolonged periods. This is the body’s way of releasing the stress associated with stressful or traumatic experiences. If all goes well, eventually the grieving process will be complete and the baby’s body will relax and settle into a deep, peaceful slumber. That’s why the soothing effects of your rocking and holding may not be visible for a while; holding your baby may be helping her to cry out all the tears, as it were. Stay with her all the way, and if this becomes too difficult for you, invite someone else who cares for the baby to take over. It is vital that your baby not be left alone to cry. While connection heals, aloneness is scary and can be particularly traumatic for a baby if she is crying.
Massage
Consider taking a baby-massage class. This wonderful new addition to the parent’s toolkit is becoming more and more widely available. Baby massage deserves a special mention here as one of the most wonderful methods for soothing an anxious or unsettled baby. Emotional stress is always stored in the body in the form of chronic muscle tension. That’s why emotional memory is often referred to as ‘body memory’. A delicious, regular massage can unwind from the baby’s body not only the tensions that build up from the day’s frustrations and anxieties, but also tension and shock that have been stored since birth. It would be hard to overstate the treasure trove of additional benefits to the baby’s mood, circulation, digestion and immune system from massage.
Chiropractic treatments
Many families have benefited from chiropractic treatments, especially tailored for babies. The treatment hinges on the idea that birth trauma can be recorded as body memory around the head of the child, as this part of the body takes much of the impact through the birth canal. The frightening events of a difficult birth can remain embedded in the form of bodily tension and immobility. The practitioner releases rigidities in the baby’s skull, neck and spine by using the most imperceptible and gentle of manipulations. Many people have found this chiropractic release has greatly alleviated their babies’ emotional states.
Why do up to one in five mothers suffer from postnatal depression?
If you think postnatal depression (PND) is innate and therefore unavoidable, a curse you inherited through your genes, you need to think again. There is little evidence of an inherited predisposition to PND. That said, there is research available that says that PND could be the result of birth trauma to the mother or interruptions to what the mother and baby innately expect around the time of birth. Contributing factors can include forceps or caesarean delivery and the separation of mother and newborn (Buckley 2005: 11).
Mood and hormones go hand in hand. The interruption of natural hormonal flows disrupts the delicate balance and denies the mother the fullness of emotion she would intuitively expect. Little wonder she gets depressed. The emotional needs of the birthing mother are paramount, so we should consider these needs a lot more. PND is preventable (Grille 2005: 368).
In the next two chapters, we will look at how we can care for the emotional needs of mothers, fathers, unborn children and newborn babies in order to ensure the most joyous and stress-free beginnings for new families.