NURTURE THE WHOLE YOU AND YOUR WHOLE BABY
‘One day, the whole world will be peopled with extraordinary people – healthy, good and intelligent; and it can be done simply through the power that nature gave to women. Nature has given women powers which at the present time they are not exploiting at all or are exploiting poorly. They must become aware of these powers; they must know that the future of humanity depends on them.’
— Omraam Mikhaël Aïvanhov
Your Womb: Your Baby’s First Home
‘As the pregnant mother, you are providing a sanctuary wherein your baby can physically, psychologically and spiritually thrive.’
— Carista Luminare-Rosen
Our world is in deep pain. Pain, simply put, is a loss of harmony. Most of our challenges are due to the loss of harmony between body, mind and spirit. After many millennia of civilization, the imbalance has so pervaded that it can start from our very first moments in our mother’s womb.
Just as every experience in life builds us, what we experience in the first moments of existence also deeply impacts our health and well-being. Today, when our whole lives are lived on autopilot, this ethos is lost.
Your unborn’s mind, body and spirit are intertwined with your own. Bathing in the sea of your thoughts, emotions and perceptions, your unborn feels your stress, anger and fear as much as your happiness, love and peace.
Gestation is the period when the baby shall get the first feel of the universe, whether it is fearful or loving. This will depend on every choice that you make and every action and reaction you engage in. The unborn is subjected to experience all that you choose to make it do so, be it expansive, nourishing or limiting.
The impressionable subconscious mind of the foetus, which has not developed its filters yet, will record all of these prenatal experiences. It will learn if it is deeply loved or unwanted and whether life is a joy or an ordeal. The seeds of peace, happiness, health and creativity are sown during pregnancy.
Timeless Treasures:
Thousands of years ago, Ayurveda advocated the practice of Suprajanan, loosely translated as ‘good birthing’ or ‘noble reproduction’. It is about a conscious participation in the process of reproduction to produce a worthy offspring. It started with Pinda Shudhdhi or mindful purification of the very gametes (sperms and ovum) that would make the baby.
For more on Ayurveda’s wisdom on birthing, refer to Appendix A.
Parenting Begins Before Birth
In the Mahabharata, Abhimanyu learns the skill of penetrating a military formation in the womb, as his father explains it to his mother. Prahlad became a devotee of Lord Vishnu from his mother’s songs in the womb, even though he was born in a rakshasa family. Mythology has always had it, but today’s research into gestational development confirms the undeniable influence of parents in this phase.
Expecting parents, however, need not be constantly worried about what they are doing or feeling; instead, they can accept the responsibility of nurturing a new life with much joy. Becoming a parent opens the door to some of the deepest emotional experiences that life offers.
Each child is gifted with a unique potential and deserves a good start. To allow her/him that, we need to re-examine the transition into parenthood, considering ourselves as parents from the point of conception and not only after the baby is born. We cannot afford to miss the interim period of gestation which is the closest association possible with the baby, when there is no distinction and no secrets with it.
Commit to a Conscious and Holistic Pregnancy
‘Conscious conception and gestation can indeed redeem our species and change the face of the world. Let’s apply the power of prenatal life to solve our health and social problems, and give to our planet a healthy, creative and peaceful civilization!’
— Laura Uplinger
The conscious parents of tomorrow need to start today on the joyous, challenging and overwhelming journey that parenting is. Imagine that you were a part of a family in which all your needs—physical, emotional, mental and spiritual—were consciously cared for from the very first moments of life. How much of your physical and emotional trauma could have been avoided! So many of us suffer because our parents, despite the best intent, did not have the best knowledge or resources to create the optimum conditions for our growth and development.
Holistic pregnancy is an approach for the complete health and well-being of both the mother and the baby. It is about the connections between their body, emotions, mind and spirit.
I Affirm:
With my whole being, my body, mind and soul, I feel ready to nurture and bring this precious child into the world. My child is a part of my life’s purpose, and, together, we embark on an insightful journey, supporting each other in the best possible way.
What is Holistic Pregnancy?
Adopting a holistic approach to pregnancy calls for taking care of the physical, emotional, mental and spiritual well-being of yourself, your partner or spouse and your unborn.
Carista Luminare-Rosen in her book Parenting Begins Before Conception writes: ‘As a holistically oriented person, you can create a daily life of exercising and eating well to nourish the physical body; meditating to maintain emotional, mental, and spiritual balance; and working and living in environmental and social conditions that support you in maintaining a positive attitude about your life. If you apply these holistic principles to the preparation for and care for your unborn child, you will contribute greatly to her first experiences of human life.’
The Detrimental Consequences of an Unconscious Pregnancy
‘The more we understand about the future consequences of what we are doing, and the intent that goes with the action, the more successful we will be in caring for our children with our own purposes and goals of parenting in mind. Parents need to decide together what they believe to be a healthy human being.’
— Dotty Coplen
It is well known that the child in the womb can be seriously endangered if the mother abuses her health during pregnancy. Likewise, if the mother doesn’t feel good about having the child in the first place, it can have a negative impact on the child’s sense of self.
Like a powerful magnet that realigns a smaller or less powerful magnet according to its own polarity, the energies of the developing foetus get aligned to the parents’ disposition. This means that the unborn of an angry mother may grow up to be an angry individual who will have a long-term ‘agreement of anger’ with her/his mother or father.
Such agreements influence many of a person’s subconscious destructive behaviours like avoidance, withdrawal, resistance, aggression and depression. When an infant’s brain is developed and wired under constant maternal stress, it will obviously be more suited to fight its environment than learn to live freely in it.
If a mother is depressed during pregnancy, she often also experiences post-partum depression, making her further incapable of supporting her child after birth.
Jean Mastellone Clairvoyant, who has generated numerous reports on the psychological interactions occurring between foetuses and their parents writes: ‘Unborn babies are extremely perceptive and psychologically sophisticated. They understand and suffer greatly from their parent’s subconscious negative psychological intentions, thoughts, and feelings.’
Mommy Shares:
‘I had not planned my third child and was shocked to know about my conception after a stage when abortion was not possible. I had become so negative about it all that for months until my delivery, I hid myself inside my home. My daughter is in primary school now, and I often find her behaviour stubborn and unadjusting. I am filled with immense guilt about all the negativity that I may have transferred to her consciously or unconsciously. I deeply regret what I felt at the time. She deserved to be happily welcomed in this world.’
When mothers refuse to acknowledge, express and heal their negative thoughts and feelings, suppressing them consciously or unconsciously, they transfer more and more of their energy into the part of the psyche referred to as 'the shadow'. Under the parent’s shadow, which energies of the child are most likely to express?
Some mothers become very uneasy about the pregnancy, treating it like a disease or an inconvenience and just wishing they had never conceived. While the child is still a part of you biologically, the emotional alienation caused by such thoughts causes much suffering to the unborn. It may manifest in the baby as physical and immune system disorders.
When mothers are chronically stressed, children born to them will have attention, hyperactivity and behavioural issues. Their brain chemistry does not allow them to register feelings of ease, comfort or calmness.
Prenatal Trauma
‘It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.’
— Frederick Douglas
While an unconscious pregnancy may result in you not being able to give the best growth environment to your unborn, the other extreme end of it is prenatal trauma. This can be caused by sexual abuse, an unwelcome pregnancy, prior abortions, a disease or obstruction in the mother’s anatomy, an environment of war or serious violence around the mother or toxic overload of drugs, pollution or alcohol.
If the mother is unable to relax, it can even prevent the relaxation and ripening of her birthing machinery necessary for giving birth. If the environment is not safe and supportive, she may find it much harder to reach the state required to birth her baby.
Nature’s Lens:
Pregnant mice can show extreme panic even if slightly disturbed before or during kindling, to the point of eating their young if the environment is not safe according to their perception.
Pregnant dogs can be seen moving away from the action, seeking a more isolated and peaceful spot.
The Best Gift for a New Life
Relaxation and calmness is a beautiful gift that you can give to yourself and your baby, be it before getting pregnant, during pregnancy, during birth or after the baby is born.
However, true relaxation comes only from arriving at a place of complete acceptance within oneself. Until we are defined by external forces like finances, jobs or relationships and unrealistic standards of performing, looking or being, the mind is seldom silenced into relaxation.
Dear mother, today, think of the things that come between you and your state of calmness. Let go of all fear and anxieties!
Anticipate the ultimate joy at the arrival of your baby. Visualize effortless intimacy and lactation. You are about to know the meaning of true bliss and fulfilment. You have the power to make a real difference to the generations to come.
Am I committed to providing my child with healthy conditions that will allow her/him to harmoniously express and embody her/his true self?
Summing Up:
Ask Yourself: