Introduction

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What Babies Know & All Mothers Need to Know

Introduction

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"It seems to me credible, at least, that all our experience in our life cycle, from cell one, is absorbed and stored from the beginning, perhaps especially in the beginning. How that may happen I do not know. How can one cell generate the billions of cells I now am? We are impossible, but for the fact that we are"
R.D.Laing.

In the last thirty years advances in prenatal and perinatal research have shone new light upon conventional ideas of human development. Leaders in neuroscience, psychiatry, and research psychology in infant studies have revealed many undiscovered abilities of both the fetus and the newborn baby. These findings show babies are born with a far greater range of potential than was previously recognized, that they are more sensitive, cognitive and emotional.
In a country where the vast majority of babies are born in hospitals and a quarter of these are surgically delivered, it is vital that the many babies born in this way, are delivered by obstetricians who are aware of the lasting impressions that can result from the manner in which babies are delivered and treated at birth.

It was not that long ago that babies were presumed to be unconscious and unaware of the manner in which they were born or the atmosphere of the environment into which they were delivered. That they were thought not to possess any of the necessary neurological skills which would enable them to remember, learn, and find meaning in their experiences. That the baby's cry's had no meaning and their smiles were a result of trapped wind. That being virtually blind with no colour sense and little sense of smell and taste, they were unable to feel or recognize their mothers.
Many professionals even claimed that to feel pain was a learned response from birth (some still do) and it was attitudes like this that led to many babies having major operations without any form of pain relief up until the mid eighties.

Through the work of Thomas Verney, William R Emerson, Frank Lake, Stanislav Grof and many others, it's now common knowledge that at various stages in the womb the unborn baby can remember and retain memories, frowns, smiles, squints and listens. That he can hear clearly and will even move his body in rhythm to his mothers speech.
In fact far from being devoid of feeling, the newborn baby is exquisitely sensitive and comes into this world equiped to make friends.

"Its remarkable that babies do not smile for some six weeks after birth,before birth they smile frequently" Professor Stuart Campbell expert in ultrasonography research, prenatal diagnosis, fetal medicine and therapy.

According to Dr Bruce D. Perry, Senior Fellow of the Child Trauma Academy, from this time onwards and through the early years, is a period where we are also able to increase a child’s ability to be responsible, caring, and creative.

Babies are not what they were assumed to be. Babies are so different it is vital that parents and professionals alike understand more of what babies know and what they can do.
According to 'The Tibetan Art of Parenting' in the spiritual sense, conception and birth is just a part of a succession of continuing lives. From this point of view and what we now know about intra uterine experience, babies bring with them an innate knowledge, a biological wisdom, some, like their pattern of development, born from decades of human existence.
Acknowledging and encouraging the gradual expression of the unfolding of 'what babies know' is a crucial condition of parenting.

'Do not mistake the compliance of a baby for the growth and development of a healthy infant' D.W.Winnicott.
Far better to encourage the innate tendencies of your child, once you begin to understand what it is your baby knows.

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