What is Prenatal and Birth Therapy?
Prenatal and Birth Therapy is a unique approach to working with babies, children and families in order to help resolve the effects of early stressful, or traumatic, experience. This approach uses a combination of effective therapies, and other skills, to help the baby/child to resolve its early issues, and to also help support and empower parents, both in their relationship, and in their parenting roles.
Working with babies, children and families provides a unique opportunity to resolve many of the difficulties that can affect us early in life and can go on to limit our full development and potential as we mature. It is becoming increasingly recognised that our earliest experiences are also the most formative in terms of the development of our personality, our sense of self-worth, our ability to be in relationship with others, as well as being the foundation of our health.
These early experiences include the following:
• Our prenatal experience
• The nature of our birth
• Our relationship to our parents and other care-givers
• Our early years of childhood
The experiences we have during these times create a foundation upon which we start to build the structures of our later development. Consequently, adverse events that occur during these formative phases have potentially far more wide-ranging effects than if they occurred later in our lives.
Prenatal and Birth Therapy works with babies and children within the
context of their families, and uses, where appropriate, one or more of
the following therapeutic approaches:
• Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy
• Somatic Trauma Resolution
• Corrective Attachment Therapy
• Birth simulation games
• Corrective Attachment Parenting
Who can benefit from Prenatal and Birth Therapy?
Each one of us has gone through similar stages in our early development.
However, the nature of the experiences that we have encountered during
these times may vary greatly. This work can be of immense benefit to babies
and children who have had difficult, or even traumatic, experiences during
pregnancy, the birth process or in early childhood. These difficult experiences
may lead to particular developmental, behavioural, or other types of problems
as the child grows and develops. Parents can also benefit from the work
as many of them have unresolved feelings, and other experiences, from
their own early life that can interfere with their ability to be truly
in relationship with their family. Developmental and behavioural problems
in their children can often leave parents feeling confused, bewildered
and antagonistic. Prenatal and Birth Therapy also aims to support parents
in a way that can empower them with their children. It can also be of
benefit to individuals who recognise that difficult early experiences
may be affecting their current state of physical, emotional and psychological
well-being.
What are the effects of Prenatal and Birth stress and trauma?
There are a number of different conditions that are commonly attributed
to early life stresses and trauma.
For Babies
Gastrointestinal disorders - "colic"
Attachment and bonding problems
Feeding difficulties
Extensive crying
Frequent awakening during the night
Sleeping problems
Reflux and regurgitation
Unresolved cranial moulding
Temperemental difficulties
For Children
Attention deficit disorder
Developmental delays
Emotional problems
Behavioural problems
Learning difficulties
Hyperactivity
Extreme shyness
Aggression
Autism/Aspergers Syndrome