The Vulnerable Prenate
William R. Emerson, Ph.D.

Dr. William Emerson, Co-President of APPPAH holds advanced degrees from Vanderbilt and San Jose State Universities, is author of fifteen publications and a series of seven training videos, including "Treating Birth Trauma During Infancy,"  and "Healing Birth Trauma in Children," which reflect his pioneering approach to the early resolution of trauma. Emerson Seminars for parents and for professionals are held regularly in several cities in the United States and Europe.

• ...prenatal experiences are likely to have lifelong impact when they are followed by reinforcing conditions...

• ...life experiences are perceived in terms of prior and unresolved traumas.

• For years, it was hard to understand how prenatal experiences could be remembered. The central nervous system is very rudimentary during the prenatal period, and is not fully myelinated (covered by a protective sheath)... In 1970 Graham Farrant, an Australian medical doctor, began experiencing prenatal events and recording his body experiences. He was quite astonished to discover that he experienced most of his significant prenatal memories at a cellular rather than a tissue or skeletal-muscular level, and he referred to his recollections as cellular memory.

• A group of European psychologists, led by R. D. Laing and Frank Lake (both now deceased), contend that prenatal memories are the most influential because they are the first. This perspective is apparent in Laing's book The Facts of Life, where he srites, "The environment is registered from the very beginning of my life; by the first one (cell) of me. What happens to the first one or two of me may reverberate throughout all subsequent generations of our first cellular parents. That first one of us carries all my 'genetic' memories."

• Aggression and violence are pathological symptoms resulting from multiple, reinforcing traumas with themes of loss, abandonment, and aggression.

• ...birth is often perceived and experienced in terms of prenatal traumatization. For example...babies who experience aggression or violence while in the womb are likely to experience the interventions of birth as aggressive and violent, even though there may be no such intent on the part of medical personnel or parents.

• The greater the degree of stress or trauma during the prenatal period, the greater the likelihood of birth complications and obstetrical interventions.

• ...childhood experiences are very important in determining and shaping who children will become. It is precisely because childhood experiences are so important that it is vital to free childhood from the bonds of pre- and perinatal trauma. If these traumas can be resolved before childhood, then childhood has the opportunity to be experienced on its own, without traumatic influence from the prenatal period, and without the defensive forces that inhibit feelings of safety, security, and growth. Furthermore, children can be freed to exhibit and manifest their own unique human potential, to utilize their own inherent levels of intelligence, and to, become themselves, unencumbered by prior traumas.