The Benefits of Gentle Birth for the Infant

Each day of our lives we make deposits in the memory banks of our children.- Charles R Swindoll

Even on our very first birthdays, as we emerge naked into the world, our minds are as alive as our bodies, the neurons in our brain ready to absorb information, our memories waiting to absorb data. The human brain is a complex organ that science does not yet understand. Who knows what secrets lie in the shadows of our psyche?

What proof is there that remnants of memories of our birth or even our gestation are not hiding somewhere in our subconscious, influencing our personality, our choices, our feelings? Without such proof, we need to cautiously treat a child as we would any person of sound mind: as a sentient being with a conscious, a memory, a brain. Do unto others as you would have done unto you.

We know that birth continues to affect mothers and their babies long after D-day. Both are affected physically, and the mother is most assuredly affected mentally. What about the child? There is evidence from Harvard suggesting that prolonged periods of crying can have negative effects on a baby's brain. That is proof that events of infancy, even ones that seem trivial and meaningless to us, can have an everlasting outcome on our lives. If a child remembers being allowed to cry his heart out and is affected by it, how could he not be affected by a traumatic birth experience?

Birth safety is not just about live mothers and physically perfect babies. It is also about treating the mothers and their babies in a manner that promotes their mental, psychological, and spiritual health. To force or encourage a woman to give birth in an environment that does not accomplish this task is unsafe to the psyche of mother and child. We know that mental issues, such as stress and depression, can manifest in a physical form. If a traumatic birth does affect a child's psyche, that can affect the child forever--socially, emotionally, even physically.

Without any proof that babies remember nothing, even in their subconscious, we need to err on the side of caution and assume that they remember it all, that everything they endure shapes the person thye become in some way. We need to treat them with respect.