An Introduction to Prenatal & Perinatal Psychology: Birth Matters for Babies too!
Have you ever considered birth from the perspective of the baby? It is likely that you haven't and it's probably because there is a pervasive belief in our culture that since we don't remember this time of our lives, we must not have the mental capacity to make judgements, feel emotions and even feel pain... yes seriously, pain. It was only in the early 1980s that the medical community was forced (by parents) to acknowledge babies can feel pain and to provide medication for surgeries, such as circumcision (1). But let's think think about this. Babies can feel, see, taste, hear, touch, suck, kick, grasp, and react to external and internal stimuli while in the womb... neurons are firing, cells are working... isn't it a wildly flawed assumption to think that experiences during this time of our life don't matter? Could it be possible that early experiences, such as those during pregnancy, birth, and infancy are stored within our incredible and rapidly developing bra...