Читать книгу Shadows of Belonging - Ron Rockey - Страница 6

What is bonding? In the late 1960’s, science discovered a post-birth experience of mother-child communication called bonding. According to this discovery, Mothers and Fathers bond and babies attach.

Given what we know about the effects of diet, alcohol, tobacco and drugs, it seems to make sense that a mother’s thoughts and feelings would have a potentially beneficial or detrimental effect on her unborn child. Since a woman is almost always positively or negatively connected emotionally to the man who impregnated her, it is reasonable that their relationship would affect her thoughts and feelings and, thus would impact the developing child in her womb. Studies that back this discovery are from laboratories around the globe. Many scientists and authors agree that the period of time in the womb impacts a child throughout life and is most affected by the relationship between the pregnant mother and the man who impregnated her during that gestational period.

Add to this, the birthing experience of the baby. The French obstetrician Frederick Leboyer, author of the book Birth Without Violence, argues for gentler birthing methods, and his works have instigated similar methods around the world. Science tells us that traumatic births, with lengthy labors, fetal distress, the use of forceps or suction cups to aid delivery, and even the attitude of the physician who delivers the child, all have an influence on the amount of distress experienced by the baby.

According to Dr. Verny, it is important that the child benefits by a warm, humane and reassuring environment after birth because he is aware of how he is born. The unborn child’s mind is conscious and aware, but not as deeply complex as an adult’s. He is not capable of understanding the shades of meaning that an adult can put into a simple word or gesture but is sensitive to remarkably subtle emotional nuances. He can react to such uncomplicated emotions as love and hate, and also to more “shaded complex feeling states like ambivalence and ambiguity.” The Secret Life of the Unborn Child, pages 18 and 19.

In one study performed by Dr. Michael Lieberman, it was shown that

“an unborn child grows emotionally agitated (as measured by the quickening of his heartbeat) each time his mother thinks about having a cigarette. She doesn’t even have to put it to her lips or light a match.” Ibid., page 20.

Another interesting ability learned from our mothers while we are in the womb is our pattern of speech. It comes from our mother and is as distinct as our fingerprints. Dr. Henry Truby, Professor of Pediatrics, Linguistics and Anthropology at the University of Miami, has determined that the fetus hears clearly from the sixth month of pregnancy onward and moves his body rhythm to his mother’s speech. A mother who speaks soft and soothing words to her unborn child makes him feel loved and wanted not because he understands the words, but because he is mature enough to understand the emotional tone of the maternal voice.

The fetus also responds to music. Put Vivaldi’s compositions on, and the baby relaxes. Put Beethoven on, and even the calmest child starts kicking and moving. Boris Brott, Conductor of the Hamilton, Ontario Philharmonic Symphony explained that even at a very young age, he could conduct some musical scores, and the cello part stood out to him. These were the very scores that his mother, a professional cellist, reports she was practicing while pregnant with him.

It is important to understand that the experiences in adolescence and adulthood affect us quite differently than experiences in the womb. An adolescent or adult has had time to develop defenses and responses and can soften or deflect the impact of an experience. A fetus, on the other hand, is affected directly.

“That’s why maternal emotions etch themselves so deeply on his psyche and why their tug remains so powerful later in life. Major personality characteristics seldom change. If optimism is engraved on the mind of an unborn child it will take a great deal of adversity later to erase it. Where our new knowledge can legitimately make a difference is in helping to identify and prevent the roots of serious personality problems.” Ibid., page 25.

Scientist’s recent research has shown that the more active children are in the womb the more anxious they will be after birth. They will be the most comfortable, most relaxed and least anxious when they are alone. In adulthood these anxious ones will prefer aloneness, avoiding spouses, their own children and even friends, or be attracted to others who provide the gentle acceptance they needed in the womb. The unborn child has to feel loved and wanted more intensely than adults do. He has to be talked to and thought of, lest his spirit and often his body start wilting. Studies of schizophrenic and psychotic women show conclusively that their offspring have far more devastating physical and emotional effects. Time Magazine’s October, 2010 article reports further:

“Studies have suggested that women who are pregnant during historical periods of stress or famine give birth to offspring who are more likely than those born in calmer times to develop schizophrenia in young adulthood. Maternal malnutrition may disrupt neural development, contributing to the illness.”

Regarding depression, the article states: “Research has found increased rates of premature delivery and low birth weight among babies born 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 28^th and 32^nd 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.