Prenatal Psychology

Communicating with the prenate. After a struggle of many decades, the true dimensions of fetal consciousness are emerging, thanks to a growing literature of firsthand reports from parents and abundant observations of life in the womb. In retrospect, scientific views of the sensory, emotional, and mental nature of prenates and newborns, grounded exclusively in a brain-matter paradigm, were grossly inadequate. A new paradigm is replacing it based on baby awareness and knowing. This presentation offers some initial guidelines for parents and birth professionals who seek two-way communication with babies before birth--a dialog that promises greater safety, meaning, and satisfaction in pregnancy and childbirth.[3]

Born with a purpose. In each individual there is a life project, which can be traced back to conception. The life project exists in the depths of a child's being, close to their essence; from there, it influences all the internal and external processes. The life project contains what a person needs to realize personal potentialities that are present from conception. The life project seldom appears clear to the parents from the beginning although unborn children send signals of their existence and their character. Unfortunately, in our materialistic culture signals from the unborn are systematically ignored, deflected and then forgotten by parents. Education begins from conception and can be properly achieved by parents only if they establish a deep contact with their children, communicating with them, and coming to know their life project.[4]

Fetal awareness of emotions during pregnancy. Contemporary research indicates that the mother's emotional state and that of her unborn child are far more closely related before birth than was thought to be the case only a few years ago. The purpose of this study was to explore possible correlations existing between the primary emotional states of birthmothers during their pregnancies and the subsequent awareness of these emotional states of birthmothers by their offspring. To achieve this goal, 12 pairs of mothers (ages 44 to 85) and their offspring (ages 9 to 61) were hypnotically age regressed to the time of the pregnancy. Hypnotherapy/ideomotor technique was employed, in separate sessions with each mother and each offspring, by licensed professional psychologists, who were selected because they routinely used hypnotherapy in their private practices. Within the findings across all 12 pairs, there were 79 identified instances of correlation, derived from a content analysis from the regression session transcripts. The data from this study yielded a striking variety and quantity of detailed information about prenatal consciousness and a wide range of recalled prenatal experience by the offspring, as well as supporting information from the birthmother.[5]

Prenatal memory recall. Focuses on the experience of healing through prenatal and perinatal recall. Interviews were conducted with 7 adults who variously attested to having healed conditions of: syncope, phobias, arthritis, asthma, migraines, depression, suicidality, obsessive-compulsion, side pain, and dysfunctional interpersonal patterns. Intentions were to: (a) illuminate the experience, (b) examine the benefits and drawbacks, and (c) underscore the impact of obstetric intervention. Existential-phenomenological research methods were used with Hycner's (1982) 15-step analysis for interview data. Two in-depth interviews, a demographics form, and a follow-up question were the instruments used to access data. Data analysis revealed seven individual, two unique, and two general themes. All 7 remembered pre- or perinatal trauma, and subsequent child abuse. Three remembered deleterious effects from obstetric intervention including long-term depression, slowed labor from anesthesia, pain from forceps, and vertigo from inversion at birth. After treatment all co-researchers felt the mitigation of psychological and/or physical conditions they had suffered. Results imply fetal/neonatal memory/consciousness and the need for research into the long and short term effects of obstetric procedures.[6]

Psychospiritual guidance before birth. This paper examines the cross-cultural appearance of myths, stories, customs, and legends that refer to images of protection and guardianship of a fetus before, during, and after birth. Included in this discussion are the Jewish angel Lailah, the Christian guardian angel, the Greek daimon, the Roman genius, the Chinese goddess Kuan-yin, the Mauri goddess Hine-Titama, the Egyptian god Bes, as well as a look at indigenous peoples' mythologies that appoint guardianship status to trees, land, animals, and inanimate objects. An attempt is made to make sense of these images through an examination of the biological aspects of prenatal development and birth, as well as through a more transpersonal or spiritual perspective on human development. It is concluded that further research into these images can help shed light on specific aspects of human development including understanding our need for inner images of protection and guidance, and comprehending the deeper passions or stirrings of "the genius within us," who assists us moving through our lives.[7]

Reliability of birth memory. Compared the birth memories of 10 mother-child pairs to determine the reliability of the memories of the children obtained via hypnoanalysis. Child subjects, who were between 9 and 23 yrs old, had no conscious birth memories. Mothers were 32-46 yrs old at the time of the study. All subjects were capable of hypermnesia. Hypnotic induction was used. Mother and child reports of the same birth varied in perspective, content, and detail, reflecting the fact that the birth experience was somewhat different for each of them. Reports of mothers and children indicated that (1) children's birth memories appeared to be real rather than fantasy; (2) birth memories contained errors; and (3) memory contents suggested a sophisticated level of physical, mental, and emotional consciousness at birth.[8]

Consciousness before birth and after death. Veridical evidence of a physically transcendent source of consciousness comes from both extremes of the life span when central nervous system functioning is compromised, suggesting that some form of personhood can exist independently of known cellular processes associated with the body. In pre- and perinatal accounts, veridical memories have surfaced of events in the first two trimesters, long before the central nervous system is fully functional, continuing through the third trimester, when measurable brain activity begins, until just after birth. In the empirically verifiable out-of-body phase of near-death experience (NDE) accounts, a source of consciousness has been shown to record events when measurable metabolic processes, including brain activity, have ceased altogether. These two states have similar phenomenologies, suggesting that a physically transcendent source representing individual consciousness predates physical life at the moment of conception and survives it after death, and that its maturity and functioning do not directly reflect the level of central nervous system functioning in the body.[9]