As we draw near to the end of this course, we will be looking this week at how you were received at birth and how this maps to your relationship with the world and how you are seen and heard.
The natural ending to a sacred journey is to be welcomed, and honoured. At the same time after a physiologically stressful and intense journey there is a need for gentleness, less stimulation and rest. It is not uncommon for babies to sleep for long stretches of time in the first 12 to 24 hours before settling into a more usual rhythm of feeding every 2 to 4 hours after that. These needs are in direct contrast to what is experienced in most modern hospital births.
Instead of a quiet, dimly lit environment with one or a small number of known caregivers and your mother, there is often loud noise, bright lights and many people with various jobs to do. If the birth has been traumatic or disturbed, then the shock of more stimulating input can be overwhelming.
There is something ancient and powerful in how we are welcomed earthside. The first eyes you see with your new eyes. The energy you receive from the first person to receive you. Too often in modern setting there is no direct loving eye contact and the meeting of your mother is rushed or absent. Although babies do not yet speak words and adult language takes years to learn fully, I believe that they and we read far more in the energetic field than we realise. Under regression most adults point to the shock of the cold, brightness and noise levels. And there are documented incidences where the adults under hypnosis have been able to recall conversations and incidents that were able to be verified later. My hypothesis in this is that, although the baby cannot speak and takes time to understand speech, they are powerful energetic beings who are hearing, feeling, and sensing the whole energy field and interpreting this. Later in life we can put words to this. The words that are heard are understood on a deep energetic level and can go in especially deep during this open vulnerable time.
Comments in the background of the baby can be internalised as commands or instructions about who they are and how the world is. With so little awareness of the sensitivity of babies and their wisdom and awareness, little attention is paid to be mindful of what is said. People speak as if the baby was not present and listening.
If you experience discomfort at being the centre of attention, issues with your body image or a mismatch between who you feel you are and who the world perceives you to be, then there is likely something to look at with regards to your first moments. In our live call we will explore your first sights and sounds and their impact on your development. We will also explore how you were received and how this shaped your sense of self in the world.
Below are some additional facts about babies vision, hearing and brain at birth to help you with your understanding of what the world is like for a newborn.
Brain Waves at birth
In an undisturbed birth your mother's brain changed from everyday beta waves to the slower frequency of alpha during early labour. Her brain further slowed to theta during transition and birth. This induces a deep trance like state of deep relaxation, altered pain perception, increased intuition and instinctive behaviours as the neo cortex takes a back seat. This is a natural, adaptive way the body processes the intense physical demands of childbirth. The baby in contrast generally starts labour in a deep delta state and their brain 'wakes up' as it moves to theta as labour progresses. After birth they remain in ranges of theta, a state in which they are very attentive to their environment. You can also track their brain waves synchronising with their mothers, particularly in the alpha range as her system regulates her baby's.
Of course in a more disturbed birth, the mother may not be fully in this state as it needs her to feel safe and relaxed in her environment for all the hormones to flow. if the birth is perceived as threatening or distressing, the expected "calm" theta state can coexist with, or be overridden by, high-arousal brain waves like beta or gamma, Nevertheless some element of 'labourland' altered consciousness will be experienced but the theta state will be accompanied by extreme stress instead of calm and this will also likely be the baby's experience. This combination can be a powerful programming for the baby in such an intense formative experience.
After birth the baby remains in lower frequency states such as theta and delta for months. This is an ideal state for learning, it allows visual information to spread to knowledge building regions of the brain as they build up a picture of the world through interactions and social cues. Their brain continues to synchronise with their mother, particularly when she is happy.
Babies Vision at Birth
Your eyes opened around 27 weeks for the first time and you could sense light through your mother's body. However even at birth your newborn vision was not fully developed. You could see somewhere in the range of 20 to 40 centimetres. However, this is the perfect distance to focus on your mother / caregivers' faces. Your vision lengthened over days and weeks gradually. As we saw last week sights and sounds are important in the bonding process and the shorter range of sight goes together with a baby's expectation to be held close. They prefer stronger contrast of bright colours and black and white to muted pastel colours which are harder to differentiate. Anything past about 40 centimetres is blurred and out of focus.
Babies Hearing at Birth
Although you could not see far, you could hear much further. You had been hearing sounds throughout your life in the womb since possibly as early as 16 weeks and by the third trimester you could hear sounds outside the womb even though still muffled by the amniotic fluid and your mother's body. At birth you recognised familiar voices including your mother and other close family members and show a preference for these known sounds. There is plenty of research on this but what is less commonly studied or talked about is the impact of other sounds and comments made about them or to them.
In Summary
This energetic experience of how your were witnessed and received contributes to the formation and strengthening of neural connections in the brain. The newborn baby is building a meaningful picture of their world and who they are in it using these early visual, auditory and other sensory experiences such as touch and smells. This will become embedded as part of their identity and personality for years to come.
We will be exploring this in this week's live call which will form part one of a two part ritual transition from a deeply held identity of wounded baby to empowered adult.
Reflection Questions:
1. Take some time to consider how you feel when you put your self in a situation that is 'out there' in the world. This might be posting on social media, going into a shop to talk to someone, meeting a new friend, chairing a business meeting, imagining speaking at an event- or something else that is something you wish to do or already do in your life. How do you feel? Is it easy and smooth or do you brace yourself before hand? What is the dialogue you are running as you do this?
2. In the above situations, how do people generally receive you? What do they say about you? What do you expect them to say? Is it the same or is there a mismatch?
3. How were you received at birth? What was spoken about you? What did you feel?
4. Are there any parallels or patterns you can spot that are repeating here?
Bring your answers to the call and we will explore deeper and work with this theme.