Light and love are inherent in many holidays, especially this time of year. We love to see light and we feel peace when we feel loved. One characteristic of love is attraction. Newborn babies are full of love – oxytocin is the hormone of love and what helps a woman’s uterus contract to birth her baby. Therefore, levels in the mother and baby are very high at the moment of birth. The gift of birth is love itself.
Newborn babies fill us with awe and wonder. We want to be near to hold and touch them. New parents wonder “Where did you come from?” when looking into their babies’ eyes. This remains a mystery. Did you know a baby’s eyes at birth are about the same size they will be as an adult? https://birthworks.org/do-human-eyes-remain-the-same-size-from-birth-to-death-by-cathy-daub-cce-cd-bwi/ One mother said, “I looked into my baby’s eyes and saw the universe!” Women’s lives are transformed when they become mothers. This is because of love’s transforming potential.
The holidays are also a time of giving. What are the most special gifts to give our babies, children, parents and each other? What if we have only positive thoughts and words, seeing what is good, hearing what is good, touching what is good, tasting what is good… so all newborn babies absorb those energies and feel safe. A mother and her newborn are a dyad – they are so connected that what mom feels is felt by her baby and vice versa. Parent/baby skin-to-skin contact sets off a cascade of hormones in both of them. These hormones help lay down pathways in the baby’s limbic brain which impact them for life. Respecting the primal period - from conception to the end of the first year of life - is essential for our health as an adult and it all begins at birth.
The practice of human values of love and giving is the foundation The BirthWorks Experience which is empowering and transforming. Birth in a holistic sense means that the more joy and love we feel for each other, the more the baby feels it in the womb and after birth. In BirthWorks, we establish a deeper awareness of key connections between babies and parents. We do this by holding parents in awe of the gift of birth and nature’s perfect design. For example, the process of having the smell of amniotic fluid in the womb is similar to colostrum’s smell, which helps the baby find life-giving food at the breast at birth. Breastfeeding establishes an emotional language which later leads to speech - all so perfectly designed for our miraculous growth and development. In The BirthWorks Experience, we encourage trusting how the universe put all this together, helping every baby have the most positive experience for a good start in life.
