Prenatal Parenting: Bonding with Baby

One of the first questions I ask my clients:

“How is your baby?”

We now understand that the baby is imprinting the whole pregnancy experience and though s/he may not be fully conscious for a few months, I encourage you to talk to your baby and start acting like parents from conception.  Wait until birth and you have missed a beautiful opportunity to get to know your baby and begin bonding with them.

Some parents don’t want to bond with their babies until later in the pregnancy–“just in case”, but the sooner you let your baby know that they are a wanted member of the family, the safer they will feel and they will have an easier time navigating the world from this sense of early safety and belonging.  Wouldn’t you want your child to feel safe and loved from the very beginning?

I’ve also observed that moms who feel connected to their babies often have more graceful births and a gentler transition into parenting the baby earth-side.  Dads can start interacting with their baby, too!

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All of our senses become active at varying times during gestation.  Hearing is especially acute.  Prenatal researchers have shown that babies are conscious in-utero; they move away from ultrasound probes, they hear & remember music played during your pregnancy, they start learning the rhythm of your language and they already recognize the sound of their mother’s voice before they are born!

As I mentioned in Part 1, taste gets formed early, so if you want your child to eat her veggies, best to make sure you are doing the same while you are pregnant.  Our babies learn from our actions early on.

You can even start playing with your baby before it’s born!  Prenatal researcher David Chamberlain says: “Parents interested in prenatal communication have taught their prenates the “Kick Game.” When babies kick, the parents touch the abdomen and say, “Kick, baby, kick!” When the baby kicks, they move to a different location and repeat the invitation. Babies soon oblige by kicking anywhere on cue.”

Even if you have a difficult time during pregnancy, you can talk to your baby and reassure them.  In Part 2 of this series, I write about the impact of pregnancy stress.  In my birth trauma healing work, I have had clients recount prenatal experiences that they didn’t know about before we started working.  They were later able to confirm these experiences with their mothers.  Babies are so connected with their mothers while in the womb–what happens to you is part of their earliest experience of the world.

Mothers seem to know instinctively that babies like touch and you will see many pregnant moms rub their bellies a lot, especially in the third trimester.

With practice, many mamas are able to communicate with their babies through dreams or in deep meditation.   Listening to your baby may be challenging at first, but I see how powerful it can be for my clients when they start getting a sense of the unique person in their belly!

Enjoy your baby and interact with them from the moment you know you’ve conceived.  All of you deserve the benefits of connection and and creating a strong relationship throughout your pregnancy!

What are your favorite ways to connect to your unborn baby?

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