Assisting and supporting parents to create
healthy attachment and bonding
with their baby -- for a
lifetime
Benefits of Infant-Parent Healing
with Prenatal and Birth Focused Therapy
For Pregnant Mothers and Partners
·
Resolving Fertility issues
·
Resolution of anxiety and previous traumatic birth
experiences, including preparing for VBAC (Vaginal
Birth after Cesarean)
·
Assisting baby to turn from breech position
·
Resolving structural pelvic issues - prior to labor to
eliminate pain
·
Mom and baby birth advocacy and support (home or hospital birth)
For Newborns and Infants
·
Relief from nursing problems
·
Resolution of colic
·
Secure attachment of baby to parents and bonding of
parents with baby
·
Support for and resolution of post-partum depression
·
Stimulation of physical and neurological systems
For Toddlers, Children, Teens, and Adults
·
Relief from chronic asthma, ear, throat, and
respiratory infections
·
Resolution of crawling issues, ADD/ADHD, asthma,
autism, sleep, behavior issues
·
Resolution of physical and emotional traumatic events
·
Resolution of relationship, emotional, grief, and
anger issues
·
Facilitating attachment during adoption
·
Resolution of abortion trauma
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Symptoms of Prenatal or Birth Trauma
That Lead to Complications in
Infant-Parent Attachment and Bonding
Click on each of the bulleted items
below to learn more about the symptoms of prenatal or
birth trauma:
·
Baby
has impaired latching, sucking, swallowing, choking or
other nursing problems.
·
Baby receives a diagnosis of
colic and/or is prescribed medicine without
explanations or answers and/or has chronic ear
infections (both can be caused by physical
restrictions that occur during the birth process.)
·
Baby arches his or her back when
picked up, or stiffens or looks away, or is defensive
when touched, or won’t make eye contact.
·
Baby seems to be
“checked out”, or “zoned out”, “far away”, or “not
there” when awake.
·
Baby sleeps a lot, rarely cries,
and is considered “such a good baby.”
·
Baby cannot be
awakened, even after hours of sleeping, or feels limp.
·
Baby
cannot be consoled and/or is inconsolable during
certain times each day and/or clenches fists and/or
tightens stomach when crying.
·
Baby seems
emotional, irritable, fearful, angry, or frustrated.
|
Symptoms of
Prenatal or Birth Trauma
·
Baby has impaired latching, sucking, swallowing,
choking or other nursing problems,
Such as a baby who nurses and pulls away or jerks head back,
fusses, and attempts to re-latch. These are only a few of the
nursing symptoms of physical and emotional trauma that can be
easily resolved with Infant-Parent Therapy. Posterior
presentation at birth and rough, excessive suctioning done
immediately at birth are two of the many contributors to
nursing problems. Both involve physical and emotional trauma
and the timing and manner in which these interventions are
done often disrupts the attachment sequence at birth. This is
easily healed with Prenatal and Birth Therapy.
The International La Leche League recommends CranioSacral
therapy for nursing problems. Traditional CranioSacral Therapy
works to resolve physical restrictions in the bony and
membranous structures of the body. Prenatal and Birth Therapy
heals the emotional and psychological attachment issues that
interfere with successful breastfeeding.
Back to "Symptoms..."
á
·
Baby receives a diagnosis of colic and/or is
prescribed medicine without explanations or answers and/or has
chronic ear infections.
Irritable stomach and colon, repeatedly and consistently
spitting up, and vomiting for unexplained reasons are symptoms
of emotional and physical trauma. A mother knows intuitively
when something is not right with her baby and she should not
simply accept the diagnosis of colic and the use of medication
without also using birth therapy as an augment
to the drug therapy. Babies who resolve their emotional and
physical traumas often make immediate and sustained
improvement in the first session.
Colic and chronic ear infections can be caused by physical
restrictions that occur during the birth process, particularly
when the mother births in the supine or lying down position.
Miriam Mills, MD, a pediatrician in Tulsa, OK has completed a
five-year study of the use of cranial manipulation as an
alternative to medication and surgery to treat colic and
chronic ear infections. Her results are soon to be published.
Back to "Symptoms..."
á
·
Baby arches his or her back when picked up, or
stiffens or looks away, or is defensive when touched, or won’t
make eye contact.
These are symptoms of possible attachment and bonding issues
between mother and baby. An attachment and bonding issue does
not mean that a mother doesn’t love her baby. It is not
because a mother doesn’t wish to bond with her child.
Attachment disorder is a symptom of a missing piece in the
attachment process that is often interrupted at birth.
Additionally, so many factors prenatally and at birth can
impact the attachment and bonding process between mother and
infant. Prenatal and Birth Therapy provides opportunity to
easily resolve and heal the parent-child relationship in the
early days and weeks rather than after years of cycles of
emotional damage and pain and disappointment.
Back to "Symptoms..."
á
·
Baby seems to be “checked out” or “zoned out” or
“far away” or “not there” when awake;
·
Baby sleeps a lot, rarely cries, and is considered “such a
good baby”;
·
Baby cannot be awakened, even after hours of sleeping, or
feels limp.
The above three are symptoms of shock from trauma. The baby is
dissociated either because of physical or emotional trauma.
Back to "Symptoms..."
á
·
Baby cannot be consoled and/or is inconsolable
during certain times each day and/or clenches fists and/or
tightens stomach when crying.
A baby with clenched fists, tightly closed eyes, and
inconsolable crying, stiffening, thrashing of body, and
resisting comfort or the touch of the mother or father is
communicating the memory — his or her story — of early
experiences in the womb and at birth. Crying spells at the
same time of day is a symptom of a trauma response. Nocturnal
crying is often related to cranium trauma such as in birth by
c-section or other situations where the baby labors without
progression, where the baby births too quickly, and/or when
the baby’s head and neck are mishandled or over extended at
birth as in vacuum extraction and forceps delivery. Lack of
progression is often a place where a prenate has become stuck
in the mother’s pelvis and experienced fear and anxiety while
the head has continued to push against the un-opening cervix
and bony structures of the mother. This causes physical
symptoms that continue through life as the body and mind
compensates. For example, most adults come to massage and
chiropractic sessions for relief of neck, shoulder, and back
pain that in the study of prenatal and birth trauma are now
known to be rooted in the physical and emotional experience of
birth. Click
here for more on infant
massage.
Back to "Symptoms..."
á
·
Baby seems emotional, irritable, fearful, angry,
or frustrated.
Since babies are fully conscious and intelligent beings, they
are capable of experiencing and expressing the entire range of
human emotion. If a baby seems angry, sad, furious, scared, or
frustrated to you, trust your own feelings and seek help to
understand and heal your baby.
During the birth process a prenate often must become quite
angry, terrified, or determined enough to build the potency
necessary to move through obstacles at birthing from the womb.
This emotion continues to be experienced after birth at
particular times, such as when life experiences trigger the
memory of the experience, when the baby’s body is in a certain
position, or when touched on the head or other parts of the
body. Building potency for action through anger or fear
becomes an imprint for life. This can be seen in behavior of
young toddlers, long after colic and crying symptoms have
subsided.
The typical response of adults to trauma crying by an infant
is to bounce the baby and roughly pat the baby’s back to
console them; to stick a breast, pacifier, or bottle in the
baby’s mouth; and to tell them, “You’re okay, it’s okay.”
These responses can exacerbate the emotions of the baby,
because the baby is not being heard nor is she being validated
about her experience. As adults we know it doesn’t feel good
to be told, “it’s okay, it’s okay” when we know it isn’t.
Often, someone acknowledging the emotion and situation from a
non-judgmental and empathic perspective is enough to help one
to move on. Otherwise, we feel unheard and eventually stop
trying to share our story when others are not able to sit with
us in the painful place we are feeling. As an infant
emotional support is often substituted with the breast,
bottles, pacifiers, or the baby is left to “cry it out”. This
teaches the infant to stuff her feelings and use things
outside herself for comfort. By adulthood comfort is found in
addictions with food, alcohol, drugs, cigarettes,
relationships, sex, porn, gambling, shopping, over working,
etc.
To understand birth from the perspective of the baby, consider
as an adult, how one might feel if stuck in a shaft or fallen
building where one cannot see or move. Imagine the experience
of being trapped hours or days while others must assist in
your release or escape for your survival. Your body would be
totally confined, and in many places with unimaginable
restriction and pain, while your mind and emotions are wild
with fear, anxiety, and terror; yet, you must remain calm and
in control as best you can to prevent panic that could lead to
your death, probably by suffocation.
During the process of extrication there might be moments of
ease and even relief as any new movement through the tunnel
might ease tension on the body part that was engaged. Or,
perhaps this movement through some segments of extrication
creates more pressure on parts of your body or maybe a lack of
oxygen. At this point your heartbeat might drop or accelerate
in response to your situation and the air supply, or lack of
oxygen. In labor, when a mother needs oxygen, the baby will be
experiencing exactly what the mother feels, such as some
degree of safety or fear.
How would rescue personnel assist and interact with this
person? Mechanical assistance would be necessary. Would they
administer drugs to push the individual through an impassable
place? Would the drugs be helpful to be sedated but prevent
your ability to assist in your own efforts? Would those
assisting you ignore your fears, pain, and your emotional
needs because you “won’t remember the pain or fear?” Wouldn’t
there be a person or team of persons speaking softly,
providing reassuring verbal support by acknowledging the fear,
pain, etc. and detailing the efforts to help you, and touching
you if and where possible? Maybe even reassuring you of the
support they have together as a team in assisting you in their
efforts to get you out? This is exactly what a baby needs
during the birth experience. S/he needs for the birth support
team to focus on supporting the mother and for the mother and
the others to be communicating with each other and the baby.
Later, after being extricated, your body and emotions would
spontaneously let loose (an effect of being a self-preserving,
homeostatic human being). You would vocalize (uncensored) your
experience and feelings that you were unable to express while
confined. Most effectively, this would be done with the loving
physical and listening support of someone close.
Communicating his or her perspective of the experience and
releasing the trauma is what a baby is doing in the early
months of life. Babies are telling the story of their birth,
the joys, fears, and pains, from their perspective. If she is
unacknowledged, she will learn to physically and emotionally
compensate. Imagine that after your own extraction from
entrapment you were not allowed to express your body’s
spontaneous, uncontrollable reactions to trauma and shock. You
were expected to not let your body shake (a reaction to
shock), to not let your tears to flow, and to not let out your
screams or even your words, to express the experience. Your
unresolved feelings would be compensated within your body and
would be expressed in physical pain and illness. You’d likely
be defensive in any situation that triggered the memory of
your confinement.
It is difficult for a new parent to watch and hear their
newborn who is expressing their anger and grief from prenatal
and birth trauma much. It is likely that when a baby shows
the symptoms of trauma that this also contributes to
post-partum depression for the mother. So often the parents
are feeling the depth of their own emotions of fear, anger,
powerlessness, etc. and so a parent might feel the need to
avoid their own feelings and will not be able to be present
with their infant. When mothers and fathers are unable to
recognize their own and their baby’s feelings and are unable
to empathize with the baby’s birth experience, the consequence
is that the child feels unheard and unsupported. Parent and
infant bonding is further impaired and a lack of trust
deepens. Prenatal and Birth Therapy supports a parent to hear,
to be with their angry, grieving infant. The result is a
healing of the relationship and the facilitation of attachment
and bonding. When parents are supported to support their
infant’s experience healing occurs.
Back to "Symptoms..."
á
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A Baby's Birth
-
is a continuum of critical periods of
physiological
development that begins even before conception and
completes at the mother's breast, in the arms of the
father, and will be lived throughout life.
-
-- Janel Miranda
•
My Online Store
•
Homepage
Prenatal
and Birth focused Therapy |
What is it?
Benefits and
Symptoms
When is Therapy
Appropriate?
The Science
Supports It |
Menu of
Services |
Pregnant and
Post-Partum
Moms
Infant Massage
Instruction
Adults
Professional
Settings |
Baby's Birth |
Birth From
Baby's Perspective
Inducing and
Epidural
Anesthesia
Vacuum Extraction
Cesarean
Sections
Breastfeeding
and
Self-Attachment
Colic
Homebirth and
Midwifery
Where Babies
Come From
Medical
Interventions
and Birth
Trauma
The Connection
Between
Birth and
Violence
Interrelationship Between
Prenatal,
Birth, and Post Birth
|
Peace on
Earth |
Peace on Earth
Begins
with Peace at
Birth
Healing Birth |
Links |
Recommended
Books
Recommended
Websites |
About Me,
Janel |
How I Came To
Be Doing
Prenatal and
Birth Therapy
My Professional
Resume |
|
My Art Work |
Praise for the Work
|
Stories From Parents |
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|
Janel Miranda
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When you were born, you cried and the world rejoiced;
live your life so that when you die, the world cries and
you rejoice. — Cherokee Saying |
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Welcome, Little One! |
my grandson |
|
Andrew Mekhail
was born December 23, 2005 |
My daughter,
Erin, gave birth VBAC (Vaginal Birth After Cesarean) at 9:30 am
in Phoenix, AZ. Andrew weighed 7#14 oz, was 19-1/2 inches long.
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|
They did the
self-attachment sequence -- visit my
Self-Attachment
page to learn more -- has
lots of pictures. |
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