Giving Birth to a More Peaceful World
The main focus of modern maternity care is the biological development of an infant. What was once considered a most sacred rite of passage for both parents and baby has become a technologically managed, medical event. By separating the physical aspects of conception, pregnancy and birth from the psychological and spiritual, the experience of birth for both parents and babies has profoundly changed.
A birthing mother has gone from being viewed as a vessel of divine co-creation to a patient in a place otherwise reserved for the sick and dying. A baby, once honored as a wise soul entering the world with a revered purpose is now viewed as a biological organism whose capabilities are determined solely from its current stage of physical development. There is now ample evidence to show that babies are so much more than we have been led to believe.
For the last 30 years, the field of birth psychology has been documenting the profound psychological and spiritual capacity of prenates and infants, as well as the effects of birth practices that don't acknowledge them as aware beings. These studies have focused on babies, as well as adults to determine the long-term consequences that manifest in later life when early issues are not addressed.
Although we now have yoga studios in almost every neighborhood and meditation classes in corporations, maternity care has yet to address mind or spirit in its practices. Could it be that this disconnect is correlated with the increase in disorders and violence among children and in our world? What if our babies are summoning us to deepen our awareness, to look beyond our superficial perceptions of them and join them in a much more expansive experience of life? What human potential will we realize if we return birth to the transcendent event it is meant to be and allow babies to guide us in re-connecting with the fertile, wondrous, mystery of life?
