I practiced prenatal/fetal education to DD since she was four month in my womb. I will continue the perinatal education after she arrived.
I believe the importance of pre- and perinatal education cannot be underestimated. They give a head start of parent-child bonding, organize the baby’s brain, and possibly shape a baby’s future personality and psychological, mental and behavioral developments.
I find support from Brain Child by Mark R. Pitzer, a post-doctoral neuroscientist of St. Luke’s Medical Center in Chicago. He writes, “Research suggests that a child’s intellectual development is influenced equally by their inherited genetic blueprint and the early immediate environment.”
A child’s early environment, Dr. Pitzer continues in his paper, literally sculpts and molds the brain, influencing how a child perceives his or her world each and everyday, for the rest of their life. This so-called “long arm of childhood” ultimately influences the adult’s capabilities, likes, dislikes, how they respond to stress, their abilities to complete problems, IQ, etc.
Dr. Pitzer’s idea is echoed by Dr. Thomas R. Verny, one of the world’s leading authorities on the effect of the prenatal and early postnatal environment on personality development and founder of the Association for Pre- & Perinatal Psychology and Health (APPPAH).
In his 2002 book
Tomorrow's Baby: The Art and Science of Parenting from Conception Through Infancy
, Dr. Verny suggests that experience during the critical periods of prenatal life and early postnatal life organize the brain, and have more influence over intelligence, emotions and the structure of the brain than we thought before.
He advocates parents to consciously provide widows of opportunities to nurture a child’s brain during the early years and actualize their child’s full potential.
In her book
What to Expect the First Year (Second Edition)
, Heidi Murkoff further points out that the first three years of life have a huge impact on the quality of a child’s life.
Why the early life experiences are so important in to the formation of the human being he/she will eventually become?
Because this early stage, more than any other period in our lives, materially affects the architecture of the brain (from
Tomorrow's Baby: The Art and Science of Parenting from Conception Through Infancy
by Dr. Thomas R. Verny), causing its connections to strengthen and its neurons to survive and grow (from Brain Child by Mark R. Pitzer).
While a child’s brain, according to researchers, grows to 90 percent of its adult capacity during those first three years (from
What to Expect the First Year (Second Edition)
by Heidi Murkoff).
That is why I pay great attention in pre- and perinatal education. So far, DD is doing well. She is very healthy physically and quite advanced mentally compared to other babies in her age group. Grandma said possibly it is contributed to my fetal education.
Belgian poet and playwright Maurice Maeterlinck once wrote a fairy tale named the Blue Bird. In this work, the author describes how the soul of a baby, waits in the hall of the Blue Palace (Paradise) to be born, and comes down when called by the mother.
Although this is a fairy tale, it brings out a very interesting question: does the fetus have a soul before he/she is born?
It all depends on individual belief. To me, I think my baby already has a soul, although I don’t know when the soul enters her body.
I felt connected to her every time I talked to her. And it seemed she understood exactly what I meant.
For example, every time she was quiet and remained still for a long time, I began to wonder and worry. I either asked her telepathically and direclty:“Hi, baby, are you ok? Are you there?” She always returned me a response, either a gental kick or a small movement, no matter during the mid-night, in the early morning, or in the daytime.
Sometime when I rubbed my tummy and talked to her, she reacted to me by kicking or moving the area where I rubbed.
In my 7th month of pregancy, I found out my blood pressure was a little high and I was afraid to have PIH, which, if getting severe, might cause danger to both mommy and baby (see PIH? Oh, no!!). I talked to my baby and asked her to work with me and do our best to keep her in until full-term.
During my second glucose test (see Survived the GTT), I also asked her to understand and support me and cooperate with me to stay until the end of the test.
Most of the time she was very supportive and cooperative. Sometimes I could feel her trying to please me and work with me.
But when she had needs, she didn’t hesistate to express. When she was hungry, she was eager to let me know. If I ingored her message, she would kick, knock or wiggle persistently until I took actions. Once she got really frustrated, she kicked my tummy so hard that I jumped off my chair. Another time at the middle of the night, her kicks were so strong that I felt my whole body was shivering.
My belief is also confirmed by M’s personal experience. Years ago when his best friend’s wife was expecting their first baby, M went to visit this couple. At night he dreamed about meeting the baby’s soul. The baby was a girl. She told him she would be born at the early evening of the same date when M was born, his birthday.
When M told his friends about his dream, they laughed at him. At that time they didn’t even know the gender of their baby yet. Two weeks later, M received a phone call from his friend, telling him a baby girl was born at 5 pm, and that day was M’s birthday.
So far I didn’t dream about meeting my baby’s soul. But I do remember praying to God to give me a kind-soul baby at that special moment. Maybe the soul of this baby, waiting in the hall of the Blue Palace (Paradise), came down when called by me and fulfilled my wish to become a mother.
During the 6th and 7th month of pregnancy, I always kept fetal/prenatal education in my mind.
During these two months, important work continues to taking place in the baby’s brain. Beginning the 6th month, her brain continues to grow, eventually it will contain some 100 billion never cells. These nerve cells connect to one another, guided by special substances in the brain, and they will eventually make more connections than there stars in the sky.
In the 7th month, her brain’s sections begin to take on their lifelong roles, such as memory and speech. (from American Baby’s As Your Baby Grows, Volume 16, Number 2, 2007)
Her hearing also continues to develop. By the end of second trimester or the beginning of the third, the ability to hear is quite well developed in the fetus, which means she is able to hear most external sounds or noises.
During this perid, I paid great attention to fetal movements, doing my best to understand the message sent by my baby via her movements. To me, this is so far the only way my baby communicates with me, telling me her needs, likes and dislikes.
Fetal movements also tell me the pattern of her daily activity and rest. According to her pattern, I adjust my timing to interact/communicate with her, since I don’t want my stimulations to hamper her developments.
Like I always believe (see Fetal education in 4th month), the essence of prenatal/fetal education is not to “educate”, but rather to “interact”, or “make contact”. There is plenty of time for teaching facts or imparting information later.
Right now the most important thing is providing the best prenatal environment to help her to grow, nurture her brain development, and build parent-baby bonding, all of which are extremely important to her future personality, psychological development, intellectual and behavioral development.
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