Baby remembers birth: Hospital, Birth Center, or Home

Meteyer resolved to stay out of the hospital when she gave birth, but it wasn’t easy. When her son, Ambrose, was born three years ago at the Greenhouse Birth Center in Okemos, Meteyer toughed out an epic 48-hour labor without drugs. She said it was worth it to avoid a hospital-managed birth, which she thinks would have involved a “failure to progress” diagnosis, Pitocin and a possible cesarean section.

Hey! Meteyer is a physician ...

Read the full article at Outside the Hospital: Local women discover natural birth


" ... epic 48-hour labor without drugs." As genuinely impressed as I am with the article and with Dr. Meteyer's awareness and commitment to natural birth, including her own, I have to post an article I wrote last week. It is about the baby's experience of birth, the baby's perception of his or her experience of birth.

One of my major complaints about both of the fields of obstetrics and midwifery is that few of the highly trained people in either profession consider the impact of the birth on the baby. Whether the birth is at the hospital, birth center, or home, I found the caregivers are oblivious to the baby. The single, desired outcome is, "Live baby." Their focus seems to be on showing that the birth choice and process was just fine, because, "the baby is ok." Baby is alive, baby is ok, and baby looks good, that is the language, regardless of what happens. No one asks the baby, or considers the baby ... as the general belief is that babies are resilient, and babies don't remember; so, adults trained in the medical field, wearing scrubs, licensed by states, and insured can do whatever they want or need.

I wrote the article after several days after learning from my friend/colleague who is writing a book on the experience of Csection and VBAC birth. She said out of two hundred stories, none, not one of the women talked about how the birth impacted their baby. I had been chatting over a period of days with David and Donna Chamberlain about this phenomenon. David is a pioneer in the field of prenatal consciousness. I contend that doctors, nurses, men, and women ... they can't allow themselves to consider that the human baby is fully aware and recording everything. To do so means they have to acknowledge what they've been doing to babies, sometimes for years and years. Mothers and fathers can't acknowledge the traumatic aspects of their baby's birth because our mainstream culture doesn't yet accept the science and techniques to heal the experience. Major abdominal surgery which prevents the baby from experiencing what humans have experienced for eons is touted as perfectly safe for the baby.

I have also been editing a documentary-style piece for the Columbia, MO Red Tent Event (www.birthonlaborday.com). Six of the seven women who shared their stories gave birth by cesarean section. I was so surprised; I expected it would be a lot of "natural birthers and homebirth mothers bragging about their experience to make other women feel bad," as another blog about homebirth rags about. Five of the 6 women also did a VBAC. They shared the traumatic experience of surgical birth and the triumph of completing themselves, healing themselves after a vaginal birth. During neither the surgical birth or the vaginal birth story did women talk about the impact of the experience on their baby. Women rarely do .....

So, here's my draft of an article I started for the www.BEPE.info group:

In our culture we speak of a baby’s birth as if it were the mother’s birth. When mothers give birth to their babies they are aware of their own experience and love to share it with everyone. But, do we consider the baby’s experience? Do we consider that as the mother speaks of her experience – joyful or painful – that the baby also has a perspective? His or her own story? Whether we acknowledge it consciously or not, we mothers naturally and intuitively know on a deep level that their baby also experienced their birth. We have never had the acknowledgement or support to truly “go there” in order to consider that that birth that profoundly affected us negatively also affected our baby.

When birth has been long, challenging, and painful, it has also been the same for the baby. In fact, it is even more so for the baby. The baby’s physical experience of being stuck, for example, is as terrifying as the mother’s experience, or maybe more. Unfortunately, society hardly acknowledges the life-altering impact of even a great birth. Women are not supported to celebrate the beautiful birth or to process a dangerous or terrifying birth experience. 

The baby is also experience the most profound experience of life: the transition from the warm, wet, safe environment to this world. Within seconds or preferably minutes, the baby’s connection to the mother – his cord – is severed. She or he immediately goes through astounding physiological changes to become a totally, separate, and independent person. For almost ten months she or he has been symbiotic with his mother in every way .. physically, emotionally, psychologically, and spiritually, and physically.

The physical change alone is monumental. Within seconds the baby’s heart chamber closes to reroute blood, the liver begins to filter, the lungs expand.

Whatever is going on in the environment will either support or interfere with the baby’s process. This is all recorded in the baby’s brain. From the moment of conception, the creature we now know is our baby, has been growing in reaction to our environmental experiences and reactions. She or he only knew the world through us – our emotions, our hormones, our choices and behaviors. Now, his or her body (and brain) will begin her own life.

This is the moment as well when our new relationship begins with our baby. We have known this baby for months. We have felt our baby stirring within us. We can feel the difference between our baby’s personalities during gestation. We have talked to the baby, told her of our dreams of her and for her future. We have told her we can’t wait to see her. Some mothers have not wanted their babies and their gestational dialogues have gone differently. Whatever the story, it also belongs to the baby. Now our baby is here. She or he is a totally separate human, but it does not feel like that to us. This insures the baby’s survival. 

The newborn baby’s life is still completely dependent. She or he is totally helpless and will survive only if there is a loving, nourishing caretaker who will protect him or her from dangers of the world. We humans are resilient and we do manage to survive in the harshest and most violent, uncaring environments, but we now know that a human’s ability to receive and give support, nurturing, and protection to others and self begins in the womb and during labor, birth, and infancy.

As mothers our emotional and psychological beliefs about our baby and our lives are important from conception forward. The baby has been grown in the womb of the person intended to be that caretaker and protector – in most cases. The relationship and the baby’s experience of the parents are well-established by birth. The birth experience will inform baby of how the world is – quiet, safe, supportive or scary, touch is harsh, and cold -- and how we will care for and protect him or her. 

Mothers have their perspective of their experience of birthing their baby. Babies have their experience of being born. Did the baby begin his or her own birth process as is physiologically indicated? Or, was she induced? Was epidural narcotics used so that mother’s attention and focus was no longer on her body and her baby? What was that like for the baby? 

How mother and baby come back together to reconnect will form a foundation for their way of relating. This is a profound relationship that will undergo major psychological and emotional changes in those first moments of life outside the womb. How mother and baby reconnect is defining. How that re-connecting and integration occurs will be the template for their relationship outside the womb.

Babies tell their story as mother tells her story – and new mother tell their story often. “Then the epidural came on and I was relieved. I watched television and slept. It was great.” But the baby is crying and thrashing. Mother says, “Shh, shh, shh,” to the baby and goes on with her story while simultaneously trying to force a breast or bottle in the baby’s mouth. This is like a mother telling her experience of birthing her baby, “It was horrible. I was in such pain and no one was there to support me.” Her friend says, “Shhhh..shhh…shhh… here is a piece of cake” and it is forced upon her. Soon the mother will not be trying to share her story that needs only to be acknowledged. It’s not that her perspective “will just go away” with time. She learns to hold the emotional pain inside. Babies learn this way too. 

A baby’s response will accelerate, for example, when a mother is speaking of a medical caregiver whom she felt was invasive or violating. Or, sometimes, babies appear to zone out or fall asleep. They are “checking out”, they are not asleep. Babies also respond to parts of THEIR story that are joyful, exciting, and supportive. “And, when Bob (daddy) arrived I was able to relax and ….” baby relaxes, coos, laughs, or shrieks. 

While I know this information may trigger many feelings about how our babies have been treated and what they experienced, I also always intend to provide the hope to heal it. It is important to understand that there are new techniques that support babies to heal what happened during birth. These techniques support mothers and babies to tell their story and to be heard by one another. Acknowledgement is the foundation for mother-child healing and for family and couple healing. Fathers/partners have their perspective of their experience that varies greatly from either mother or baby. Their experience is vastly different, but just as important. Fathers also need to have support to share their story and to be heard and supported. Men have no place to share, “I felt horrible when I wasn’t able to protect my baby or when I couldn’t get the nursing staff to listen to our decisions” or “when this man I never saw before lifted up my wife’s gown and ….”. 

Mothers and fathers – nurses, doctors, anyone – can learn to watch babies and listen to their cries. Adults are too fast. They tend to be invasive of baby’s space and unresponsive to baby’s timing needs. Anyone can learn how to slow down and to respond to a baby in a more gentle, slower, and aware manner. All of us can learn how to pause when we are too activated, and to slow down to hear and see BABY’S story and their current needs expressed through their body language and cries. 

This information can be quite alarming for parents who have not considered that their baby has their own perspective of the birth experiencing. This can trigger shame, guilt, anger, and denial. That is the “bad news” as I call it. The GOOD NEWS is that there is much new scientific information and new techniques to support a person – at any age – to heal their very early experiences. The focus of the new techniques works on the central nervous system level. We intend for baby (whether 4 days or forty years old) to have an experience of being wanted, heard, protected, seen, not separated from mother, or touched gently, etc. When the baby has that experience, the nervous system is able to create new neural connections around that experience. It allows one to integrate the undesirable experience with the desirable.

Healing, integration, processing … it is about healing the experiences during conception, gestation, labor and birth, and early parenting in order to overcome the experiences that interfere with attachment and bonding in the primal period. We believe that these early experiences are the foundation for the rest of life. We believe that the GOOD NEWS is that we can create the relationships we wish for with our loved ones when we acknowledge our woundings and the joys of our earliest experiences.

Therapists who work this way – to support baby, mother, and father to process their individual experiences and to integrate them into their new family system -- have been trained in biodynamic craniosacral therapy as the foundation for the work, and will have trained with one of the pioneers of this work, William Emerson, Ray Castellino, Wendy McCarty or one of their many students. Therapists and their teachers are usually members of the International Association for Pre and Perinatal Psychology and Health (APPPAH) (www.birthpsychology.com). APPPAH was co-founded by Nevada City resident, Dr. David Chamberlain. He and his wife Donna started a local group, Birth and Early Parenting Educators (BEPE) to support Very Early Parenting locally and beyond.

L. Janel Martin Miranda

CranioSacral focused Attachment Therapist

Birth Videographer

Midwest BEPE - Columbia, MO

Prenatal and Birth Memories

Prenatal and birth memories are a little more complicated than what we think of as memory. Prenates and newborns are very sensory. Their brain is recording every event from conception forward. Language develops over time as the human infant and toddler put words to feelings and make connections. A good example came up today at my house. My 14 year old was talking about "remembering" seeing her father and I in bed and how she didn't know what it was about. Now she does. That is how children learn everything --- just because they don't have words for the experience as an infant or toddler doesn't mean they don't remember it. By the time she KNOWs the language to understand and speak about sex, she has known about it for a very long time.

It is well- known and accepted that the brain wires in response to experience. Research and technology of the 90's confirmed and deepened our understanding of the brain. This development of the human brain begins in the womb, begins at conception and during the first weeks of life the neural tube is one of the earliest structures. The experience of the newborn and infant is as real as yours or mine is now. The baby is experiencing something -- and the brain responds and wires connections ... safe or scary, happy or angry, fearful or relaxed ... their sensory oriented body takes it in and it is recorded in the brain. This is why we talk to and touch the baby, and it is why we give them visual stimulus. It is known if this interaction with the environment is minimal or violent or distracted the baby won't develop intellectually or appropriately.

According to Gerald Vind, a neurobiologist and expert in prenatal brain imprinting and reimprinting"

Norepinephrine acts in the developing nervous system of a prenate to suppress the growth of irrelevant and undesirable neural connections, while at the same time facilitating the formation of relevant synaptic connections. Norepinephrine also provides protection in the brain, especially a part of the emotional center (limbic system) that is called the amygdala. It prevents damage to the amygdala and suppresses abnormal kindling activity (seizure activity) when operating under conditions of peak activity. Under conditions of acute or repetitive maternal stress, norepinephrine levels are depleted. This is typically accompanied by the secretion of natural opiates that also exert an inhibitory effect on the release of norepinephrine. During pregnancy these natural opiates are passed through the placenta and influence the development of the prenate. At any stage of a developing brain, the depletion of norepinephrine, along with excessive amygdala activation, and opiate release, can lead to permanent structural and functional alterations affecting brain interconnections, synaptic size and densities, as well as their responsiveness. With repeated instances of heightened stress activities, an abnormal form of neuronal interconnections can develop along with a reduced response threshold. In other words, severe maternal stress while you are carried inside your mother’s womb can really mess up the way your brain is "wired." This is how the foundational capacity for empathy and socialization is handicapped. 


And people get so "jiggy" about babies remembering birth and early infancy --- babies who are fully formed human beings from second trimester on, awake and looking around at birth, and their brains don't remember? Basic brain development is that the human baby experiences and interacts with the environment and the brain responds and "wires" up in response. Was it happy or sad, joyful or painful, stressful or gentle?

Once one understands that consciousness is present in the cellular matter of the egg and the sperm one begins to see how everything happening outside the womb of the baby is contributing to his or her development. Some say it's inappropriate to speak to children about their birth?? On some level that is so laughable, because of the utter ridiculousness that the baby doesn't remember -- as if the baby wasn't there and didn't experience the birth. HIS or HER birth.

There is a field of scientific research looking at the primal period of life and specifically the last trimester when the human fetus has been shown to be interacting, tasting, feeling, sensing, and hearing and responding to the environment. There is also a field called Infant Psychology and most major universities have a research lab looking at the ability of the human newborn's effort to interact with his or her new environment. Yet, we are expected to believe that this development from primal period to infancy is somehow in the "off" position during labor and birth? So, that a baby is not impacted by the experience?

We have evidence about prenatal period so it is inappropriate to dismiss the birth experience. THEN, one can begin to look at conception and the first imprint of perception, based on the mother's hormones in response to HER experience -- love, ambivalence, guilt, rape. Emotions result in hormones. How the cells join together to create the one cell of the new human in a particular hormonal environment is the first experience of the human being. It's so logical that in every cell that develops from that cell, the being knows what happened at conception. This continues through gestation, labor and birth. How can we logically and morally and scientifically say that process and experience of birth is insignificant to the baby?

Anti-homebirth folks rail against women for thinking only of their own experience. They are chastised for putting their baby in great harm and putting their need for a good experience ahead of the baby's. Most birth caregivers refuse to consider the baby's experience.

What would it hurt to consider how the birth might be experienced by the baby and that same science about development applies to the period of labor and birth as it does to the prenatal and post-birth period?

Fetal and Newborn Memories (Learning)

A study of adult behaviour without consideration of its origin before birth is as incomplete as . . . the study of adult anatomy without reference to the embryology of the structures considered.
-- Carmichael (1954)

In a debate against fetal memories, a female OB poses the question on her blog:

What makes you think that the brain starts recording memories at birth or before?"

The question was posed after the blogger posted comments by a neonatal doctor on his blog who blasted my post/statements about babies being aware and conscious and that no matter what happens in birth the caregiver can treat the baby with respect and regard -- because the baby remembers the experience of labor and birth.

And, a poster replies:
.. isn't this common sense? I think what Diane was trying to get at is absolutely correct. Babies don't have "memories" per se, but clearly EXPERIENCES do impact the developing infant. For example, one of the strongest needs of infants is physical bonding. A baby doesn't remember being cuddled by his mother, but clearly that bonding matters in his development. Babies will actually die from lack of physical connection. What makes you think that experiences DON'T have an effect as early as birth? At what age do experiences start to matter for an infant?

Good question. When DOES the human experience start to matter -- pun intended!? When IS IT that a woman should BEGIN to act as if her behavior -- good, bad, or indifferent -- impacts her baby? When does the love, the joy, the nurturing, the conscientious diet, and elimination of stress and toxins matter? What about the science that shows us that the baby in the womb is learning language and taste, shows emotions, and responds to the mother and other outside stimulus? Based on "defensive" caregivers denial should a mother no longer hug her pregnant belly and talk to her unborn baby? Why bother if the baby doesn't RECEIVE it and KNOW it?

The neonatal doc trashed his own colleague (but they won't buck their own system) who retired from neonatal medicine and is an author who has written about the need for prenatal preparation for preventing one's baby from being in NICU. Dr. Fredrick Wirth (http://www.prenatalparenting.com/) describes the well-known and accepted science that supports fetal learning and he teaches mothers and fathers to take "fetal love breaks." (Hint: we are hormonal beings.) If the neonatal doc blogger is correct -- that there is no fetal, birthing baby, or newborn learning, why bother with all that love crap? Eat, drink, and be merry, (and smoke weed, too) for it won't affect your child until, oh, say, about three? Isn't that when the child LEARNS to TALK, THINK, EXPRESS EMOTIONS? Put away the cigs and quit yer cussin' cuz at age three -- the kid will hear you then. And, no more violence and spanking. Oops, or doesn’t science clearly shows us the foundational brain has developed BY AGE THREE? Hmmmm.... oh, heck, where is that picture of me glazed-eyed, looking off, rubbing my chin, contemplating?

Lord o' mercy and Oh, Mama -- the science is pretty clear -- even if those you'd expect to know and behave accordingly don't know it or believe it --- the human being from conception forward is EXPERIENCING, INTERACTING, RESPONDING, and LEARNING. Psst.. it's about cells!

The discussion on the OB's blog occurred in support of her neonatal buddy who took a spin on the tired old media driven spin-machine, using the media slander of Scientology's "Silent Birth" to debunk me and his own colleagues with pictures and narrative about Tom Cruise. Yaaaawn. You forgot to mention Brittney. The docs got so ruffled by the possibility of babies REMEMBERING the treatment by doctors and nurses during birth that they immediately jumped where docs always do -- blame and litigation avoidance (and turf and income protection). And, if you and I believe the scientists they lump into the tired PSEUDO SCIENCE defense, damn it, isn't the worst thing that would happen is the OB's, neonatalogists, nurse, and pediatricians will have to learn and change, too. And, we'll all treat pregnant women, birthing women and babies, and newborns in a more respectful, loving way?

Keep this in mind as you meander through the research below and wonder with me, why don't these highly educated and professional "scientists" embrace the science and follow it through? How do the people who actually work every day with newborns not incorporate the science into their own work? Why don't they know that the science that supports the understanding of fetal programming and infant ability and learning also applies to the laboring and birthing and NICU babies? I mean, how ignorant to believe the laboring and birthing baby's brain ceases to function and to interact with the mother and her environment.

As a physician and writer in this area, I am also excited by the new neuroscience that confirms all that What Babies Want teaches: the existence of preverbal (implicit) memory; the importance of pleasure for optimal brain development; and the negative impact of stress and stress hormones on brain cell growth. We can now say, scientifically, that the happiness that we put into our babies will nurture a healthy brain life-long.
--Sarah Buckley, MD

So, to answer the poster's question about whether a baby remembers her mother's hugs --- in subconcious way, yes, we remember everything. A child who has been abused or who did not receive hugs and gentle touch will RESPOND automatically to touch in a certain way. This child grown up will continue to react to touch or lack of touch without consciously thinking of or remembering the early abuse or lack. It is the implicit learning and memory. Recoiling at touch, for example, is the subconscious body, the soma, the somatic reaction and communication. NICU babies are particiularly sensitive to touch and resist appropriate affection. THAT is the early memory or learning IN ACTION. Of course, every touch, scrub, tug, or pull of the newborn is remember somatically. So, as I quoted at the beginning of this post,

A study of adult behaviour without consideration of its origin before birth is as incomplete as . . . the study of adult anatomy without reference to the embryology of the structures considered.

-- Carmichael (1954)

Your obstetrician, nurse, neonatalogist, and pediatrician mostly will not tell you about how amazing your gestating, laboring, birthing, and connecting baby is -- and many will even deny the science that is showing us that it is imperative that we treat babies differently. Very differently than they are treated in the medical machine. YOU will have to be the one to expect and ask them to treat your baby with respect and awareness.

Read for yourself below about the scientific communities who are studying the prenatal environment as the foundation for health and wellness. You are smart enough and you are a logical, thinking, feeling, and compassionate person who can put one (prenatal brain research) and one (infant brain research) together to make TWO (labor and birth brain matters too). You don't have a couple of hundred thousand or more reasons to deny it. You know that our baby's brains are also working during labor and birth, so that we know babies are affected for life by their birthing experience.

We know babies are LEARNING in the womb and in the first moments and hours. We know from that that babies are learning during labor and birth as well. THAT is the point of this long post with lots of resources for you to come to your own conclusion. YOU and YOUR BABY were/are brilliantly aware, interactive, and learning (everything from fear to joy and love to hate) during labor and birth as well as every other moment of your life. Can I roll my eyes now and say sheesh? For emphasis.

Prenatal/Fetal Programming (Learning, Imprinting)

Gerald Vind, PhD, Neurobiologist

During pregnancy, your mother's neurochemicals are passed through the placenta and influence your development. At any stage of a developing brain, the depletion of norepinephrine, and release of the brain's natural opiates, along with excessive activation of a part of the limbic system called the amygdala, can lead to permanent structural and functional alterations. This affects brain interconnections, synaptic size and densities, as well as their responsiveness. With severe stress, an abnormal form of neuronal interconnection can develop along with a reduced response threshold. In other words, if your mom is severely stressed while you are inside her womb, her stress reaction can negatively affect the way your brain is "wired."

http://www.pnri.net/ and http://www.transformingdragons.com/

Peter Nathanielzs, MD (OB), PhD (vet)

Nathanielsz points out by the time of birth the infants have already passed through more developmental milestones than they will pass through in the remainder of their years, and their brains have achieved most of their development.

http://www.ualberta.ca/~jpdasddc/ARTICLES/2000(2)/pp71-75SobseyFetal.pdf

Ten Principles of Fetal Programming
From Life in the Womb: The Origin of Health and Disease by Nathanielsz

1.) During development, there are critical periods of vulnerability to "suboptimal" conditions. Vulnerable periods occur at different times for different tissues. Cells dividing rapidly are at greatest risk.

2.) Programming has permanent effects that alter responses in later life and can modify susceptibility to disease.

3.) Fetal development is activity dependent. Normal development is dependent on continuing normal activity. Each phase of development provides required conditions to subsequent development.

4.) Programming involves structural changes to important organs.

5.) The placenta plays a key role in programming.

6.) The developing baby will attempt to compensate for deficiencies in the womb. But that compensation carries a price in later life.

7.) Attempts made after birth to reverse the consequences of programming might have their own unwanted consequences.

8.) Fetal cellular mechanisms often differ from adult processes.

9.) The effects of programming might pass across generations by mechanisms that do not involve changes in the genes.

10.) Programming often has different effects in males and females.

Nathanielsz' work lays out the foundations of fetal programming -- the process by which the prental enviornment interacts with genetic and other factors to produce an individual human constitution. This is parallel to the cellular biology work of Bruce Lipton whose work supports the changing paradigm of the Newtonian science upon which medicine is built. We are not pre-destined and pre-determined merely by our DNA. From before the union of our sperm and our egg we are cellularly INTERACTING with the world. Forever more.

Rather than being genetically predetermined, organisms develop in balance with their environment and purposively select, or if necessary rewrite, what they perceive to be appropriate gene programs to ensure their survival. http://www.birthpsychology.com/lifebefore/early8.html

It is well-known and well-accepted that the prenatal period is significant for development - and research in the last twenty years tell us even more so how critical this is for the lifetime. Prenatal care and medical visits are considered necessary for optimal growth and development and criminal if a woman doesn't. EVEN SO, society -- especially doctors and nurses who are held responsible after using non-medically necessary interventions routinely -- does not fully embrace the logic that the laboring and birthing baby is also affected by interventions, rough touch, pokes, probes as well as the stress, poor nutrition, disruption in the environment, isolation, and disempowerment of the mother that is "normal" during hospital birth.

So, a cultural, collective BLACK OUT exists about the science showing the impact on the laboring and birthing brain. We skip, lah, lah, lah, lah, lah over the abusive treatment of babies "in the name of medicine" by educated professionals and pick up again our scientific sword of truth after birth and after the family is at home. Babies don't remember anything abusive if it happens in the hospital.

Other researchers have also been studying the postnatal, infancy period and development. Infants are being studied to learn about vision, interactions with parents and environment, reactions to strangers, foreign language. Researchers have found that infants express their preference (communicate) by their suck. www.tmea.org/080_College/Research/Flo2000.pdf

So, all of this research about the prenatal life of the baby and the infant's learning proliferates the PEER-REVIEWED SCIENTIFIC literature. WHAT ABOUT THE BABY'S EXPERIENCE OF LABOR AND BIRTH??? WHAT ABOUT THE NEWBORN'S EXPERIENCE OF THE FIRST HOURS AND DAYS IN THE HOSPITAL OR MONTHS IN NICU?? Am I to believe that the little girl I worked with, born at 25 weeks and weighting less than a pound who was in the NICU for four months has no memory of her experience, and therefore is UNAFFECTED? How could a neonatologist even think his colleagues' work is psuedoscience? Kangaroo care was implemented after decades of children of NICU experiencing child abuse, not because the parents are bad people, but because of the trauma to the maternal-newborn/infant attachment and bonding -- that happens in the brain.

Fetal Memories/Learning

Why do seemingly very intelligent doctors and nurses, for example a neonatalogist from www.talesfromthe womb.blogspot.bom, deny the obvious -- the human being's brain does not shut off during labor and birth so that they can do whatever they want without consequence. And, really ... a blogger with that title who doesn't believe in infant memory (LEARNING!) when clearly, for decades we've known that prenates and newborns learn? It's downright scary what some will call psuedo science just to keep from learning themselves.
http://www.news.cornell.edu/releases/Jan99/womb.hrs.html


Peter Hepper, PhD, Fetal Memories Researcher, Belfast, has been studying the embryonic study of fetal psychology for over two decades. If you google his name you'll find many scientific articles. Ultrasound technology has allowed significant advancements in observing fetal behavior.

Published in 2005 -- http://www.bps.org.uk/publications/thepsychologist/search-the-psychologist-online.cfm?fuseaction=inc_getFile&ID=906&Publication_ID=1

Perinatal Olfactory Learning in the Domestic Dog
http://chemse.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/bjj020v1.pdf

Janet DiPietro, PhD, John Hopkins, Obstetrics Department

Research and Professional Experience
As a developmental psychologist, my research centers on methods of assessment of risk in infants and young children and their efficacy as predictors of outcome. Specifically, my interest lies in the underlying physiological basis for individual differences in cognition, socioemotional behavior, and temperament. I have explored these relations in early infancy and in the neonatal period, in samples of full-term and preterm infants. My current research program, which has been ongoing for the last 15 years, extends this interest to the human fetus. I have developed computerized assessment methods of measuring fetal neurobehavioral functioning in order to investigate the ontogeny of development with the ultimate goal of predicting clinical and developmental outcome from the fetal period. Within this context, I am further exploring the role of maternal factors, including poverty and psychologic stress, in mediating fetal development. Application of principles of developmental psychology and psychophysiology to the antenatal period represents a new frontier that manifests unlimited potential for uncovering new knowledge about the origins of human behavior and development.

http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1469-

8986.2004.00187.x?journalCode=psyp

Infant Memory and Learning

From Kids Health.org -- about as mainstream as you can get.
During this time, you will see your baby's personality emerge. In the first month or two of life, the baby depends on you to initiate any interaction. But by the end of the third month you will find your baby engaging you with his or her expressions, vocalizations, and gestures. Your infant's eyesight will be improving, and your child is better able to distinguish between different sights and sounds. Your baby will be carefully watching your facial expressions and listening to your voice, responding to you with coos and gurgles, and around 2 months, respond to your smile with a smile. Between 3 and 4 months, most infants can squeal with delight and laugh out loud.

http://www.kidshealth.org/parent/growth/learning/learn13m.html

The miracle of the fertilized egg becoming a human infant in only 9 months is followed by another astonishing miracle. In a mere 36 months, completely dependent human newborns become remarkably complex creatures who understand that they can share thoughts, feelings, and intentions with others, who come and go as they please, who express themselves abstractly using symbols, who empathize with others, and who read and understand subtle social signals from others.

http://www.aacap.org/page.ww?section=DevelopMentor&name=

Infant+Psychiatry:+Looking+Backwards+and+Forwards

The first neurons fire in the prenatal brain by day forty and the neurologists will tell us the that most significant development of the lifetimes happens in utero. The brain is definitely "on" and then the time for labor and birth comes and the belief promoted by obstetricians, nurses, neonatologists, pediatricians, and even mothers is that the baby won't "remember" birth. The brain is switched to "off"? So as to avoid the induction, drugs, dragging over mother's sacral prominence as she is numb and supine. Monitoring, strangers, having their heads touched and squeezed by strange, adult hands, vacuums, forceps, mother cut open to be pulled out, rough handling, and resuscitation is not really experienced and felt, so therefore, it is also not remembered? Nothing in the brain and body PERCEIVES or EXPERIENCES this?

From the very first days of life infants demonstrate awareness of their environment and evidence of learning, confirming that different family experiences likely affect infant development far earlier than once thought possible.

--- Charles Zeanah, Director of Tulane University's Infant Institute

Mother is fully aware of her child's personality throughout the third trimester, science tells us all about fetal learning in the womb, BABY'S brain switches to "off" for labor and birth and then science tells us that ...

Newborns come into the world with sophisticated brains that are phenomenally wired for intellectual growth. During the first year of life, they are more impressionable and able to develop than at any other time in life. This cognitive development affects them for the rest of their lives. Thus parents have a tremendous responsibility and a sacred obligation to nurture their children in love and train them in the Lord’s paths.

Research shows that a baby’s brain is designed to be extremely receptive to experience. With each experience, babies gain a broader understanding of their world. They use the same parts of their brains as adults do, though their brains are less mature. By one year of age, so much development has already occurred that a baby’s brain will more closely resemble an adult brain than the brain of a newborn.

http://www.foreverfamilies.net/xml/articles/fostering_moral_behavior.aspx? (I really like this site.)

Many US universities and researchers now have infant mental health, communication, and behavior labs.

So, prenatal programming and infant psychiatry are well-established. Post-natally, the brain has magically turned back to "on" and is capable of engaging once more with the mother? Learning again?

University of Missouri
Infant Cognition Lab
http://web.missouri.edu/~luoy/

Tulane University
The Infant Institute
http://www.infantinstitute.com/

Stanford
Center for Infant Studies
http://www-psych.stanford.edu/~babylab/

University of Wisconsin
Infant Learning Laboratory
http://www.waisman.wisc.edu/infantlearning/current.htm

Northwestern University, Chicago
Early Learning Laboratory
http://www.communication.northwestern.edu/csd/research/early_learning/

University of Maryland
Maryland Infant Studies Laboratory
http://www.bsos.umd.edu/psyc/woodward/lab/directions.html

New York University
Infant Cognition Center
http://www.psych.nyu.edu/infant/

University of Texas -Dallas
http://www.utdallas.edu/~mspence/project.html
Babies learn rapidly about the sights and sounds of their environment, and how to affect the people and objects that make up their worlds. Consider the following accomplishments in the infant's life:

• Within just 2 days after birth infants recognize their mother's voice, and prefer it over other voices. **
• Three-month-olds can detect primary colors, and prefer red and yellow over blue and green.
• Seven-month-olds can match an angry or happy face to a voice expressing the same emotion.
• Nine-month-olds can watch simple actions and remember and imitate them one week later.

** Ninety-nine of the babies in these research projects were born in hospitals with up to 80% or more born under the influence of drugs while their mother's were supine closing in her pelvis up to 30%, making birth much more traumatic. Research has not been conducted to determine infant or human potential on non-drugged, non-traumatized humans -- in infant memory, or any field. Once one has witnessed the uninterupted, stress-free, intervention-free, and drug-free birth and has personally seen that these baby's respond to their mother's voice within minutes, one can not help but explore the wonder of the prenate, laboring and birthing baby, and newborn as fully sentient.

Tulane University, New Orleans, LA

The Infant Institute -- www.infantinstitute.com/

Infant Communication

Early Learning Laboratory

http://www.communication.northwestern.edu/csd/research/early_learning/

Infant Mental Health

Infant mental health may be defined as the state of emotional and social competence in young children who are developing appropriately within the interrelated contexts of biology, relationships and culture.

--Zeanah, Charles in Zero to Three, August/September, 2001

The Infant-Parent Institute, Champaign, IL, Michael Trout, Director. -- http://www.infant-parent.com/

Illinois Association for Infant Mental Health - www.ilaimh.org/

Austrailan Association for Infant Mental Health - www.aaimhi.org/

Michigan Association of Infant Mental Health - www.mi-aimh.msu.edu/intro/index.html

Just google to find your state.

CURE AUTISM NOW - This study examines the motor and cognitive development of young infants to better understand the early signs of autism and other developmental disorders. Investigators at the Kennedy Krieger Institute’s Child Development Lab will observe infants between 3 and 7 months of age who could be in one of these 3 groups: http://www.cureautismnow.org/site/apps/nl/content2.asp?c=bhLOK2PILuF&b=1288037&ct=2757403

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE -- Michigan State University. The Mother-Infant Study http://www.msu.edu/~mis/. Resources: http://www.msu.edu/~mis/present/present.html

So, read for yourself and join me at looking at posts like at http://www.talesfromthewomb.blogspot.com/, April 22, 2007, Debunking the Pseudo Science of Infant Memory. You might want to consider becoming a very wise consumer in the obstetric medical field. They say induction, epidural with fentanyl and narcotics is safe for the baby and they say cutting through a woman's abodominal wall to pull her baby out is safe for her and doesn't harm the baby. You decide if it's scientific and logical that the science that tells amazing, indepth info about the learning environment of the womb and the first days and weeks of infant life doesn't also tell us that babies feel, respond to, learn from -- and, therefore, remember, unconciously -- what they experience in their labor and birth.