to depressed women. Scientists are also discovering possible links between a mother’s mood and a fetus’s sensitivity to stress, and perhaps even the temperament it exhibits after birth.”
Prenatal communication between mother and child is as important as the bonding communication after birth. A child’s world is totally and completely his mother – he sees, hears, feels and experiences through her. He is lulled to sleep by her steady heartbeat, and she is a major component of his security after birth as well.
Vitally important is what a mother thinks about her child – it makes an important difference. Dr. Dennis Stott considers this to be crucial. As reported in The Secret Life of the Unborn Child, he “rates a bad marriage or relationship as among the greatest causes of emotional and physical damage in the womb.” In a study done with over 1,300 children and their families, he estimates that a woman locked into a stormy marriage runs a 237 percent risk of bearing a psychologically or physically damaged child than a woman in a secure, nurturing relationship. His study found that unhappy marriages produced babies who were five times more fearful and jumpy than the offspring of happy relationships. These babies continued to be plagued by problems well into childhood. At four or five, Dr. Stott found them to be undersized, timid and emotionally dependent on their mothers to an inordinate degree. Pages 48-50.
“The womb is the child’s first world. How he experiences it – as friendly or hostile – does create personality and character predispositions. The womb, in a very real sense, establishes the child’s expectations. If it has been a warm, loving environment, the child is likely to expect the outside world to be the same. This produces a predisposition to trust, openness, extroversion and self-confidence. The world will be his oyster, just as the womb has been. If that environment has been hostile, the child will anticipate that this new world will be equally uninviting. He will be predisposed to suspiciousness, distrust and introversion. Relating to others will be hard and so will self-assertion. Life will be more difficult for him than for a child who had a great womb experience.” Ibid., page 50.
Mother’s thoughts – love, rejection or ambivalence – begin defining and shaping his emotional life. What she creates are not specific traits such as extroversion, optimism or aggression, but broader more deep-rooted tendencies, such as a sense of security or self-worth.
Simply stated . . .
“A woman is her baby’s conduit to the world. Everything that affects her, affects him. And nothing affects her as deeply or hits with such lacerating impact as worries about her husband (or partner). Because of that, few things are more dangerous to a child, emotionally and physically, than a father who abuses or neglects his pregnant wife. An equally vital fact to the child’s emotional well-being is his father’s commitment to the marriage. Recent studies have shown that what affects his sense of commitment most deeply – for better or worse – is when and if he begins bonding with his child.” Ibid., page 30.
Dr. Verny quotes the great Italian artist, inventor and genius, Leonardo da Vinci who wrote in his Quaderni :
“The same soul governs the two bodies . . . the things desired by the mother are often found impressed on the child which the mother carries at the time of the desire, one will, one supreme desire, one fear that a mother has, or mental pain has more power over the child than over the mother, since frequently the child loses its life thereby.” Ibid., page 34.
It appears that Dr. Verny was way ahead of his time - long before modern research confirmed what he stated.
According to Dr. Dominick Purpura, professor at Albert Einstein Medical College and editor of the highly respected journal Brain Research, “the start of awareness begins between the 28th and 32nd week of gestation. He says that “the brain’s neural circuits are, at that point, as advanced as a newborn’s.” ibid, page 41.
We do know that an anxious, frightened mother’s adrenal glands produce adrenaline, noradrenaline and cortisol in large amounts in response to a stressor. Those hormones, transferred to the child in the womb, place the child on alert. His body responds with accelerated heartbeat and his emotions with fear and anxiety. Dr. Dennis Stott discovered in the 1970s that a mother’s personal distress was of stronger impact to the unborn than the stress of someone else with whom she is in a relationship. Can you see how a child, conceived and in the womb during stressful periods for his mother, can end up living in the shadows of belonging instead of in its true light?
WOW! What you have read so far is a lot of information, isn’t it? It is however, only the proverbial tip of the iceberg. Dr. Verny has included huge amount of information, studies, conclusions and valuable advice in his writings for women considering pregnancy. You may be wishing, regardless of your gender, that you had possessed this knowledge prior to conceiving your children. At this point in your life, it can at least give you some understanding of yourself and perhaps the behaviors of your children, regardless of their ages. And if you have not yet had children, reading his book would be a valuable tool prior to conceiving a child!
It is true that we do not or cannot change what we do not know about ourselves. And we cannot alter history. But because the human brain is plastic and changeable, we are repairable. When we know the truth of our beginnings, and when we have knowledge of how our early in-womb and newborn experiences affected us, we can begin the process of undoing the effect of those experiences on our lives today. We no longer have to remain the product of them, existing in the shadows instead of in the light of love, acceptance and belonging.
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