In the 21st century, Somatic Prenatal and Perinatal Psychology’s (SPPP) knowledge and understanding of the growing baby’s sentient consciousness and sensitive nature has redefined their needs. Opportunities are now available to new parents both before and during pregnancy to set in motion life-long core patterns for your baby. Prenatal means before birth, and perinatal means around birth (before, during, and after).
The immense and deep field of SPPP tells us about the psychological, somatic, spiritual, and emotional effects on us of our creation journey from preconception, through conception, the womb, birth and newborn. SPPP helps us to understand early development from the perspective of the child, and teaches us how to create prenatal and perinatal health. It also offers its vast field of knowledge in training’s and cutting edge healing techniques specific to this period of very early development. In my practice I am healing babies in the womb, newborns, older babies, children, adults and pre-pregnant/pregnant parents and teaching conscious early parenting and attachment.
SPPP is good news for potential parents because it means you don’t have to pass on your experiences to your child. We tend to pass down inter-generational imprints unconsciously, so it’s good to know that you can always broaden your parenting choices by raising your consciousness about your own early development and imprints. Our own healing as parents is often necessary for good parenting and a sense of empowerment. I support pre-pregnant parents to prepare for conception and to explore their own early development and core issues before they conceive. A conscious conception is the greatest gift you can give to your child. Each one of us has a prenate (Little One) inside of us who holds all the information and experiences from our creation journey, like our inner child only younger.Our Little One is affecting our life as adults in many ways on a daily basis through how we feel about ourselves, our belief systems, core issues, relationships, health, career, in fact through all aspects of living. Your memories from this time are not cognitive, they are held in your body memory and energy field and are suprisingly easy to access when you know how.
Here are seven principles of Prenatal & Perinatal Psychology from the Santa Barbara Graduate Institute video called ‘Babies Know’: (Where the word ‘baby/ies’ is used this includes unborn babies.)
1. Conception, pregnancy and birth are natural processes.
2. Pregnant moms and babies share experiences.
3. Babies are conscious and expressive.
4. Babies need loving support for optimal development.
5. Baby’s first relationships lay the foundation for all relationships.
6. Experience dramatically effects the development of babies’ brains.
7. Imprints from early experiences can be enhanced or transformed at any time.
It has become necessary for those of us in the SPPP field to state that conception, pregnancy and birthing especially are natural processes because in our western culture, and particularly in the U.S.A., birth has become a medical procedure that happens in hospital. Hospitals are for sick people and not conducive to a natural, empowering birth for the mother or baby. It is possible to have a good, natural and empowering birth in a hospital but you have to really work hard to do so and have very excellent support to run interference with medical professionals. If you really want a natural birth stay at home with a midwife, or go to a birth center.
We know that a baby needs loving support after birth for optimal development, but many of us don’t realize that this need begins at conception, or even before. We have lost touch with the reality of prenatal consciousness and sentience. I don’t know why this has happened, but I do believe that it is having devastating effects on our culture. SPPP aims to restore balance and health by reconnecting women with their instinctual knowing about their own body and their baby, and empower them to be in charge and to trust themselves.
You may have seen the bumper sticker “Peace on Earth Begins At Birth” – peace on earth actually begins during preconception – in the preparation for the new soul coming in. You can enjoy the maternal nesting urge to prepare a nice, comfy, fluffy room for your new baby, but your energy may be better spent preparing a healthy womb and family environment before you even conceive.
You have the power to really influence your child’s development for the better by creating an optimal womb environment. The way that our developing nervous system, and our brain, get wired in-utero have a huge effect on our quality of life. We live in a very stressful doing-doing-doing culture and the reality of life is that it’s not always possible to have an idyllic and gentle pregnancy. However, there are many ways that you can deal with this if you are able to accept that your baby is conscious in the womb. They are affected by everything happening inside of mom and by those in her inner circle such as partners, born siblings, etc. Our unborn babies are are also having their own experience. This is true for all of us when we were in the womb. It’s exciting to know that we can influence our child’s quality of life by having a loving relationship with him/her from the real beginning of life – preconception. In the same way that we support a child who is born, we can support our soul baby by telling them what’s going on, and giving them consistent authentic love, presence and support. Early parenting mitigates the effects of stress and prenatal trauma.
Jane learned in the womb that it was not a safe place because she was not wanted – this translated after birth into being a ‘good baby’. Being good was a defense that was covering up deep fears for her life, and safety. She was unable to show her true self in relationships all the way through into adulthood because doing so was coupled with her prenatal survival response of hiding her true self. Being stuck in prenatal stress or trauma patterns can be very destructive and can make it very hard to thrive in life. It’s not possible to thrive when we are in survival mode. It’s possible to both heal and prevent these trauma’s and to create an optimal environment, and experience, for our babies.
Our womb environment and events that happen to our mom, or to us, in the womb profoundly affect us. Dr Thomas Verny, in his book “The Secret Life of the Unborn Child”, tells us about his friend the famous obstetrician Dr. Peter Fedor-Freybergh’s patient. He says that a newborn will naturally move towards the mother’s breast, but one patient’s child would not suckle. She would take milk from a bottle in the nursery, so Peter set up an experiment where he put her to another woman’s breast and she suckled happily and voraciously. Peter went to the mother afterwards and asked her if anything had happened during her pregnancy, like an illness. The mom said that nothing had happened and then he asked her if she had wanted her baby. She replied, “No, I didn’t, I wanted an abortion. My husband wanted the child, that’s why I had her.” Both doctors felt that her rejection of the child in the womb had led to her refusal to bond with her mother after birth. These are two very unusual doctors! Most medical doctors are not aware of prenatal consciousness and can even treat babies as if they have no feelings at all.
Once we accept that babies are conscious, sentient beings we must also realize that we were once a Little One who had our own experience of coming here. Widespread acceptance of prenatal consciousness would change so much that is out of balance in our Western cultures. Conscious conception, educating children about early consciousness, prenatal bonding, and gentle conscious natural birthing practices would all be welcome. Gentle practices that consider the babies’ consciousness, vulnerability and sensitivity can only be good for everyone.
© 2021 Karen Melton