• Birth memories deserve close attention.  What we learn from them can change how we live our lives, how we approach parenthood, conception, pregnancy and childbirth...For those who listen carefully, they tell us much about the difference between brain and mind, about the nasty consequences of birth trauma, and, perhaps most important of all, about new dimensions of human consciousness.

• The truth is, much of what we have traditionally believed about babies is false.  We have misunderstood and underestimated their abilities.  They are not simple beings but complex and ageless -- small creatures with unexpectedly large thoughts.

• ...learning expert Lewis Lipsitt of Brown University said long ago that the newborn is "about as competent a learning organism as he can become."  What has been discovered may both thrill and horrify you; newborns seem to be learning all the time.

• Ten years of additional evidence since the publication of the first edition of this book shows that babies are better equipped to relate to us than we previously supposed.  As proof of human  memory has been pushed back from age three to birth, the period previously thought to be clouded by amnesia, and from birth to life in the womb, we have reason to think more seriously about the birth memories our children are carrying.  When we believed that no mind could be working at birth, we never had to consider the consequences of needless pain and suffering on our personal lives or on our social order.  Now, we may be able to understand more fully the roots of violence in modern society and systematically set about replacing painful experiences with pleasant ones of times before, during and after birth.