Journals

Fully human, personal, psychological, and relational life begins before birth, and constitutes the foundation for our basic feelings of security and trust. Two vital maturational/developmental processes begin before birth and continue thereafter: habituation and sleep-wake circadian cyclicity. These two processes, which are dependent on maternal-fetus/infant interaction, enable the fetus to adapt itself to extra-uterine life. Most habituation and circadian sleep-wake-rhythm studies have focused on physiological and biological characteristics.

This poetic reflection comes to us from Bernard Levinson in South Africa. In this article you will be transported to an idealized womb experience, as well as being invited to reflect on ways in which this experience is unconsciously expressed in language.

Danica Anderson, PhD, presents her work with South Slavic women over a ten-year period during which she investigated the devastating impacts of war on women, which has contributed to what Dr. Anderson terms “maternal fright.” In her words, “The Slavic term ‘maternal fright’ is carved from chronic wars and violence towards women and is a form of transgenerational trauma.” One more piece of the puzzle of how life experiences shape individuals, and are passed from one generation to the next. 

Neşe Karabekir details the work of her and her husband, Dr. Hakan Coker, in Turkey (Birth with No Regret) and introduces the professional role of a birth psychologist.

Dr. Wendy Anne McCarty is a global holistic educator, mentor, and practitioner serving professionals and families. She specializes in optimizing spiritual human potential and relationships from the beginning of life and repairing early-origin patterns at any age to transform lives now. Her work draws from pre and perinatal psychology, energy psychology healing modalities, consciousness studies, and authentic spirituality. She was the co-creator and Founding Chair of the Prenatal & Perinatal Psychology Program, Santa Barbara Graduate Institute.

This chapter (excerpted from Dr. Odent's 2015 book, Do we need midwives?, provides an overview of the Primal Health Databank. Large-scale studies in the databank implicate the birth process and obstetric interventions in long-term outcomes, thus supporting the need for a paradigm shift

The aim of this article is to report the results of an Internet-based survey conducted in Japan concerning the four types of children’s memories: (i) birth memories; (ii) womb memories; (iii) life-between-life or prelife memories (memories before conception); and (iv) past-life memories. A child having one type of these memories often possesses other types (Ohkado & Ikegawa, 2014). It is expected that analyzing these four types of memories simultaneously will shed new light on children’s psychology.

One of the important differences between Homo sapiens and the other primates is the condition of pregnancy and birth. Because of the upright walk and the larger brain size of Homo sapiens, the birth channel became too narrow to accommodate birth after a long pregnancy. The evolutionary solution was the shortening of human pregnancy from about 21 months to only nine months. The consequence of this was the so-called “physiological prematurity” of human newborns.

Abstract: Birth is life-altering event. Under the best circumstances, it is a happy one. Labor and delivery can be empowering, with mothers feeling that they have accomplished something great. Unfortunately, birth can also be difficult, overwhelming, and for some, traumatic. Without intervention, childbirth-related trauma and PTSD can last for years, coloring how women feel about themselves as mothers, and potentially marring their relationships with partners and babies. Birth trauma and breastfeeding intersect in some key ways. Birth trauma can negatively impact breastfeeding.