...life events while the baby is forming in her stomach.
"Research indicates that even before birth, mothers' moods may affect child development," comments Dr. Catherine Monk, a researcher at Columbia University. ... " a pregnant women's mental state can shape her offspring's psyche." These observations and those of others investigating fetal origins, the study of how the nine months of gestation influences physical, mental, intellectual, and emotional functioning, mirror empirical observations long noted by mental health providers.
One couple, Carla and Tom, had worked with a therapist to explore their feeling about having children. They did have children and about twenty years later contacted her because of concern for their older daughter Peggy: for the prior several summers, on the eve of leaving home to study abroad or for internships in remote cities, she became so anxious that she could not carry out her plans. Her jealousy for her younger sister, who did study in Europe and had summer jobs in exotic settings, created family tension.
In the family sessions that ensued, Carla and Tom reminisced about their excitement when pregnant with Peggy. Tom, insisting on being an active participant in the pregnancy, decided that he wanted the fetus to be as familiar with his heartbeat as it was with his wife's. Thus, he placed his heart on his wife's stomach each night before going to sleep and each morning before getting out of bed. In that position he declared his love for the fetus and his wife, always ending with the words, "Little One...we will always be one, a united family."
In the seventh month of pregnancy, Tom left on a two-week business trip. While he was gone, the fetus kicked endlessly, creating distress for Carla. She endured sleepless nights and struggle through the days, tired and uncomfortable. When Tom returned home and resumed the ritual of placing his heart on Carla's stomach and whispering his loving words, the fetus immediately calmed down.
During our session, as Tom and Carla recited in unison "Little One, we will always be one, a united family," Peggy sobbed uncontrollably. The words reflected her deepest belief - one she had never put to language - that she could not live a life separate from the family. Now, Peggy could attach language, and meaning, to these raw feelings she had absorbed as a fetus and drove aspects of her behavior. Peggy could work towards behavior influenced by rational understanding rather than irrational instinct. She could proceed with the important psychological task of establishing her own identify distinct from her parents.
Unlike Peggy, whose primitive association was jarred by the open exchange with her parents, most people with whom I spoke when researching... reported that their appreciation for the power of primitive feelings was stimulated by dreams or body-based -- not language-based -- therapies, such as massage, polarity, or watsu. People hesitated talking about such deep, powerful connections, fearful that they might be judged as crazy. They wanted these experiences - which they connected to preverbal experiences and only known to them in their inner lives - respected.
The potential implications of possible hard wiring or epigenetic modification (the process in which environmental influences affect the behavior of genes without altering DNA). In the growing fetus, the right-side of the brain, which governs affect, feeling, and creativity, develops more fully than the left-side of the brain, which governs language, abstract thought and reasoning. It is not until after birth and the infant approaches two years old that the left side develops fully enough for language skills to emerge. It is language that allows children to convert feelings generated by the right side in to appropriate actions. These deeply rooted feelings, even if they remain an instinct without the gift of language, are strong feelings that influences personality. The influence of their primitive feelings on human development is profound.
As the science of fetal origins matures, we may come to learn the process by which the fetus absorbs communication from the mother and the outside world. The womb is not the closed world once envisioned but rather a world in which the developing infant is affected in ways that challenge our imagination. In the meantime, respect grows for knowing that even if we can't put language to thoughts and feelings previously termed "irrational," their basis may be deep rooted.
By Catherine Monk, Columbia University.
"Research indicates that even before birth, mothers' moods may affect child development," comments Dr. Catherine Monk, a researcher at Columbia University. ... " a pregnant women's mental state can shape her offspring's psyche." These observations and those of others investigating fetal origins, the study of how the nine months of gestation influences physical, mental, intellectual, and emotional functioning, mirror empirical observations long noted by mental health providers.
One couple, Carla and Tom, had worked with a therapist to explore their feeling about having children. They did have children and about twenty years later contacted her because of concern for their older daughter Peggy: for the prior several summers, on the eve of leaving home to study abroad or for internships in remote cities, she became so anxious that she could not carry out her plans. Her jealousy for her younger sister, who did study in Europe and had summer jobs in exotic settings, created family tension.
In the family sessions that ensued, Carla and Tom reminisced about their excitement when pregnant with Peggy. Tom, insisting on being an active participant in the pregnancy, decided that he wanted the fetus to be as familiar with his heartbeat as it was with his wife's. Thus, he placed his heart on his wife's stomach each night before going to sleep and each morning before getting out of bed. In that position he declared his love for the fetus and his wife, always ending with the words, "Little One...we will always be one, a united family."
In the seventh month of pregnancy, Tom left on a two-week business trip. While he was gone, the fetus kicked endlessly, creating distress for Carla. She endured sleepless nights and struggle through the days, tired and uncomfortable. When Tom returned home and resumed the ritual of placing his heart on Carla's stomach and whispering his loving words, the fetus immediately calmed down.
During our session, as Tom and Carla recited in unison "Little One, we will always be one, a united family," Peggy sobbed uncontrollably. The words reflected her deepest belief - one she had never put to language - that she could not live a life separate from the family. Now, Peggy could attach language, and meaning, to these raw feelings she had absorbed as a fetus and drove aspects of her behavior. Peggy could work towards behavior influenced by rational understanding rather than irrational instinct. She could proceed with the important psychological task of establishing her own identify distinct from her parents.
Unlike Peggy, whose primitive association was jarred by the open exchange with her parents, most people with whom I spoke when researching... reported that their appreciation for the power of primitive feelings was stimulated by dreams or body-based -- not language-based -- therapies, such as massage, polarity, or watsu. People hesitated talking about such deep, powerful connections, fearful that they might be judged as crazy. They wanted these experiences - which they connected to preverbal experiences and only known to them in their inner lives - respected.
The potential implications of possible hard wiring or epigenetic modification (the process in which environmental influences affect the behavior of genes without altering DNA). In the growing fetus, the right-side of the brain, which governs affect, feeling, and creativity, develops more fully than the left-side of the brain, which governs language, abstract thought and reasoning. It is not until after birth and the infant approaches two years old that the left side develops fully enough for language skills to emerge. It is language that allows children to convert feelings generated by the right side in to appropriate actions. These deeply rooted feelings, even if they remain an instinct without the gift of language, are strong feelings that influences personality. The influence of their primitive feelings on human development is profound.
As the science of fetal origins matures, we may come to learn the process by which the fetus absorbs communication from the mother and the outside world. The womb is not the closed world once envisioned but rather a world in which the developing infant is affected in ways that challenge our imagination. In the meantime, respect grows for knowing that even if we can't put language to thoughts and feelings previously termed "irrational," their basis may be deep rooted.
By Catherine Monk, Columbia University.