My previous post was titled, "When Birth Heals." But I didn't get too much into why this particular birth was a healing birth because to do so would have included many identifying factors about the family and I didn't want to tell that part of their story. However I want to come back to how birth can heal, it is an interesting concept and one of the elemental properties of childbirth.
Childbirth doesn't give birth to a new baby but brings forth two new beings. A mother and her baby. Each time a woman gives birth she is born again. She must travel into the spirit world, deep within, and surrender to bring her baby forth. As she does this miraculous act, a part of her is changed forever. The maternal brain undergoes re-wiring with each pregnancy and birth so that we may become the person we need to be for the new life we have helped to create. Through the deepening of brain waves, the release of love hormones, and the building of a new neural network within the brain a mother's mind is changing. During pregnancy a woman's brain wave states shift from every day waking beta to the slower more meditative alpha. In labor, the mother's brain waves deepen into theta - facilitating the birth trance. As pregnancy progresses further on, the women's body releases a cocktail of love hormones, featuring oxytocin, which stimulates a calm and relaxed state of being. The deeper brain wave states and ecstatic hormones of pregnancy and birth facilitate changes in the maternal brain that permanently enhance the women's ability to process higher amounts of information. In the article The Maternal Brain published in Scientific American it is shared how the hormones of pregnancy stimulate powerful changes within a women's brain that enhance memory, perception, and creates many new neural pathways. As a woman becomes a mother her brain is upgraded for increased sensitivity, perception, intuition, and connection to the baby. When we allow ourselves to go with this process and not fight its current, we are often transformed in the light of love. Great healing can occur during the passage.
Healing from what? Traumatic or unexpected birth experiences, losses, sexual abuse survivors. I have seen countless times the healing that can occur when a mother finds herself supported and loved during her birthing experience. When she is held in a safe place so that her travels happen on her terms, she discovers her strength. When she brings forth her baby, she discovers her power. When the birth she has envisioned gives way to reality and those she loves stand around her holding her space, past pains and fears begin to melt away. Much of this work is accomplished during prenatal care, too. This is an important reason for really meeting and interviewing your care providers. Listen to their answers, the words they choose to use, and how they make you feel. Finding someone that a mother can relate to and feel comfortable with helps begin healing before the birth. Having this time together, the care provider can aid the mother in self-exploration, self love, recognizing blocks and obstacles, and accessing their own divine knowledge. This foundational work is often over looked but an important part of the birthing experience.
Birth is powerful and transformational. It can help a women to walk through fears, dissolve distrust, discover her own feminine force, burst her heart open so that love can flood out. Her birth experiences are intrinsically linked to how she will mother and view her relationship with her new baby.
This element of birth is one of the original facets that drew me to become a birth worker. It is an otherworldly aspect of being alive, being with women, holding their space, bearing witness to the veil between our worlds thinning and new life spiraling into our world. And it is IMPORTANT. Birth is important, as well as the type of experiences the mother and baby have during their Rites of Passage. I was called to this work on a spiritual level. I wanted to be an option for mothers who were looking for something different. So I began the path.
Childbirth doesn't give birth to a new baby but brings forth two new beings. A mother and her baby. Each time a woman gives birth she is born again. She must travel into the spirit world, deep within, and surrender to bring her baby forth. As she does this miraculous act, a part of her is changed forever. The maternal brain undergoes re-wiring with each pregnancy and birth so that we may become the person we need to be for the new life we have helped to create. Through the deepening of brain waves, the release of love hormones, and the building of a new neural network within the brain a mother's mind is changing. During pregnancy a woman's brain wave states shift from every day waking beta to the slower more meditative alpha. In labor, the mother's brain waves deepen into theta - facilitating the birth trance. As pregnancy progresses further on, the women's body releases a cocktail of love hormones, featuring oxytocin, which stimulates a calm and relaxed state of being. The deeper brain wave states and ecstatic hormones of pregnancy and birth facilitate changes in the maternal brain that permanently enhance the women's ability to process higher amounts of information. In the article The Maternal Brain published in Scientific American it is shared how the hormones of pregnancy stimulate powerful changes within a women's brain that enhance memory, perception, and creates many new neural pathways. As a woman becomes a mother her brain is upgraded for increased sensitivity, perception, intuition, and connection to the baby. When we allow ourselves to go with this process and not fight its current, we are often transformed in the light of love. Great healing can occur during the passage.
Healing from what? Traumatic or unexpected birth experiences, losses, sexual abuse survivors. I have seen countless times the healing that can occur when a mother finds herself supported and loved during her birthing experience. When she is held in a safe place so that her travels happen on her terms, she discovers her strength. When she brings forth her baby, she discovers her power. When the birth she has envisioned gives way to reality and those she loves stand around her holding her space, past pains and fears begin to melt away. Much of this work is accomplished during prenatal care, too. This is an important reason for really meeting and interviewing your care providers. Listen to their answers, the words they choose to use, and how they make you feel. Finding someone that a mother can relate to and feel comfortable with helps begin healing before the birth. Having this time together, the care provider can aid the mother in self-exploration, self love, recognizing blocks and obstacles, and accessing their own divine knowledge. This foundational work is often over looked but an important part of the birthing experience.
Birth is powerful and transformational. It can help a women to walk through fears, dissolve distrust, discover her own feminine force, burst her heart open so that love can flood out. Her birth experiences are intrinsically linked to how she will mother and view her relationship with her new baby.
This element of birth is one of the original facets that drew me to become a birth worker. It is an otherworldly aspect of being alive, being with women, holding their space, bearing witness to the veil between our worlds thinning and new life spiraling into our world. And it is IMPORTANT. Birth is important, as well as the type of experiences the mother and baby have during their Rites of Passage. I was called to this work on a spiritual level. I wanted to be an option for mothers who were looking for something different. So I began the path.