Birth And The Origins of Violence

Research shows us that unborn babies are able to communicate and interact with their world. Indeed, they are not "blank slates" at birth as we have been led to believe. Babies are teaching us several important things about the origins of violence.

This is heady research but well worth the read.

Babies Are Teaching About Birth And The Origins of Violence

Until recently, the prevailing scientific habit has been to treat the earliest period of human development - from conception to birth - as an insensitive and unconscious period of physical growth. But babies are teaching us quite the opposite.

They are showing us that they are highly sensitive, reactive, and impressionable participants throughout pregnancy and birth. However, this is still the minority view in both medicine and psychology.

The belief is that no intelligence is possible - which means learning or memory cannot occur - until after birth when brain development is considered more advanced. This is not true!

The secret life of the unborn reveals to us quite the opposite! This false idea that unborn babies cannot learn is still given credence in academic circles and it affects the fundamental assumptions of developmental psychology, obstetrics and neonatology.

This false belief still casts a shadow over nursing, childbirth education, and even pregnant parents.

The mistaken belief that babies are not aware of their environment is the main reason why scholars rarely look for the roots of violence in the earliest human experiences.

We will soon discover how wrong this is!

Babies actually have a lot to tell us and they are busy communicating with those psychologists, obstetricians, neonatologists, nurses, midwives, childbirth educators, and parents who will listen to them.

Babies have repeatedly been demonstrating awareness, vulnerability to influence, and intelligence. Since the evidence for learning in utero and at birth is now overwhelming, we can assert that babies are capable of learning violence both before and during birth.

Birth And The Origins of Violence: Violence In The Womb

Let us first clarify the definitions of violence and trauma. The dictionary says that trauma is a body injury produced by violence. In the psychiatric domain, trauma is a shocking experience which has a lasting effect on mental life.

Babies are very sensitive to their surroundings in the womb. Between 10 and 15 weeks, their mothers' cough or laugh will get most unborn babies moving within seconds. Babies do not live in a fortress but in a mother.

If she is assaulted, her baby will learn about violence. If she is generously loved, her baby will learn about love.

An unborn baby whose mother received an electric shock while she was ironing sat bolt upright and immobile in the womb for two days - long after the mother had recovered.

Inez Correia has measured the effect on a baby whose mother was viewing brief portions of a violent movie. You guessed it: the babies were upset along with their mothers. Unborn babies are very connected with their mothers and they do share her emotional world.

Now that amniocentesis is more common, babies in the womb frequently confront a needle entering their private territory. Studies show they react fearfully, defensively, and sometimes unborn babies have attacked the needle during the procedure. Much of the violence which takes place in utero is the silent, invisible type: the injuries cannot be discovered until much later.

Babies are trying to alert us to the damage done in utero but we are slow in learning. Included in this category are: psychological damages conveyed through attitude and brain damage inflicted through neglect.

In a study done by Drs. Bustan and Cokerin in 1994, the lethal consequences of rejection were uncovered: 8,000 pregnant women were divided into those who wanted and those who did not want the pregnancy - and never did. The unwanted babies were 2.4 times more likely to die within the first month of life.

Another study of wanted and unwanted babies: in the U.S. and in Greece, the wanted babies were already showing higher levels of cognitive processing and greater attachment to their mothers at three months of age than the unwanted babies.

Recent studies of violent criminals have revealed they often have poorly functioning brains. These poorly-built brains were constructed under adverse conditions during pregnancy.

Research Psychologist Adrian Raine finds enough evidence to justify labeling criminal behavior a clinical disorder resulting from structural and metabolic problems in the prefrontal area, as well as from other brain injuries and dysfunctions.

Psychiatrist Dorothy Lewis has studied juveniles on death row and found a pattern of neurological impairment, paranoid misperception, hypervigilence, and low IQ's among these children.

Doctors Raine and Lewis fully appreciate that a combination of factors ultimately determines violent criminal behavior, but we must take note that brain-based origins of violence begin in the prenatal period while those babies are subject to prenatal parenting.

Having a less than optimal brain means that life is more difficult, frustration is never ending, and self-control is marginal. This can lead to misery, crime, and even death - all from prenatal causes.

Birth And The Origins of Violence: Drugs in Pregnancy

A likely cause of abnormal brain growth in an unborn baby is the ingestion of drugs and chemicals - legitimate or illegitimate. Toxins and drugs in pregnancy can cause silent, invisible damage.

The dangers of exposure to alcohol in utero are well known. The list of destructive effects now includes evidence for slowed cognitive activity in infancy.

Doctors now think that breast cancer may originate in utero from excessive exposure to estrogen.

The safety of obstetrical anesthetics - labor drugs such as Pitocin and Cytotec - has been a concern over several decades.

Yes, decades!

Psychologist Yvonne Brackbill began reviewing literature in 1979 showing the effects of maternal anesthetics on infants.

A seven year study of over 3,000 babies showed long-lasting effects on their behavior and muscular functions. Many children born to mothers given drugs were slow to start sitting, standing, and walking. By age seven, some of these children were lagging in language learning skills of perception, memory, and judgment.

In Sweden, Bertil Jacobson and colleagues studied the birth experiences of adult addicts and found a connection between obstetric pain medication and eventual amphetamine addiction. Opiate addiction was linked with the use of opiates, barbiturates, and nitrous oxide at birth.

More recently, a study of epidural anesthesia via continuous infusion of bupivacaine and fentanyl was found to upset newborn visual habituation.

Mirmiran and Swaab, of the Netherlands Institute for Brain Research, point to damage to the developing brain from pharmaceuticals given to mothers in the third trimester. They report that 80% of pregnant and lactating women are given drugs. They warn that the type of brain damage which comes as a result is not "grossly evident," but causes permanent microscopic and biochemical alterations in the formation of neurons, their migration, formation of neurites, synapses, transmitters, receptors, and behavioral states.

They say that what appears to be a structurally "normal" brain is functionally handicapped.

As you can see, drugs in pregnancy have devastating effects on your unborn baby. There are no safe drugs in pregnancy.

Birth And The Origins of Violence: Baby Circumcision

One of the most violent routines associated with hospital birth in the 20th Century is the practice of baby circumcision - a surgical alteration of the penis made for cosmetic purposes only.

The circumcision procedure is almost always performed without pain medication. That's right, there is no pain control during circumcision.

A boy is permanently deprived of a functional part of his sexual anatomy. Is this not a serious long-term consequence?

Circumcision has sometimes been the origin of deep distrust between mother and son, or has left the victim with an unconscious impression there is something wrong with his penis.

Harder to prove, but a hypothesis we must consider in this violent age, is that this sexual trauma may contribute to sexual violence. Prior to the operation, the penis is swabbed - often by a nurse - with disinfectant, creating an erection. Then the baby's penis is cut!

Marilyn Milos states the problem concisely: "Circumcision is where sex and violence meet for the first time."

New research by doctors at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto has documented that circumcised boys have a more extreme response to routine injections of vaccine at 4 or 6 months of age than do boys who are intact. The babies who were circumcised showed more signs of pain and cried longer than intact boys, suggesting a long-term effect. These pediatricians recommend anesthesia for circumcision.

However, a survey of primary physicians in that area, who performed circumcisions, revealed that only half used any form of anesthesia. Twelve percent still believed babies do not feel pain, and 35% believed babies do not remember it.

In the U.S., less than 50% of male newborns are still being circumcised, usually with no concern about their pain. Is this not a seedbed for violence in our society?

Alisha's Note: We chose to have Johnathan circumcised.

I can remember hearing him screaming from down the hall...had I watched this video before, I may have asked my husband to reconsider...

I don't know that if we have another son that he will be circumcised...American tradition - or the belief that it "looks better" may not be enough to put my son through that again...furthermore, as far as religious reasons, it is no longer required...God doesn't recognize circumcised vs uncircumcised.

Birth And The Origins of Violence: Birth Complications

Research based on over 4,200 births in Copenhagen - Holland - found that birth complications like use of forceps, breech delivery, cord prolapse, pre-eclampsia and long labor, when combined with maternal rejection and extended separations in the first year, predispose the victims - the babies - toward violent crime.

Although only 4.5% of the sample had both risk factors, this small group accounted for 18% of all the violent crimes perpetrated by these 4,200 people.

More recently, Kandel and Mednick found a significant correlation between delivery complications - for example: eclampsia, forceps, ruptured uterus and cord prolapse - and adolescent and adult violent offending. The association was particularly strong for a small group of violent repeat offenders.

Taken together, this alarming evidence suggests that babies born in the era of hospital obstetrics from 1939 to present were born in violence and baptized by violence.

Neither medicine nor psychology has understood the formative influence of early pain.

Birth And The Origins of Violence: The NICU Is A Theater Of Violence

Babies arriving too early find themselves in a surreal environment of needles, lights, incubators, and monitors designed for physical life support, but not for emotional life support. When these special nurseries were designed in 1967, babies were not expected to have thoughts, feelings, or even perception of pain.

Virtually everything done to preemie babies in NICU's is painful: breathing tubes, suction tubes, feeding tubes going down the throat, monitor electrodes fastened to the skin, intravenous punctures, heel lancing, and endless interruptions and alarms.

Over the last 25 years, the number of premature births has risen by more than 10%. Obstetrician David Cheek calls it "the tragedy of premature birth."

In this theatre of violence, preemie babies learn many lessons. Numerous painful surgeries have been routinely done on premature babies without benefit of pain-killing anesthetic. As impossible as it seems, this was standard practice in neonatal medicine from the discovery of ether in 1846 until about 1986.

For 140 years, ether anesthesia was reserved for certain classes of children and adults, but not for babies. What could the babies tell us about this experience? Being paralyzed, they could not use body language in the usual way.

Doctors were convinced the mind was not working and the experience could mean nothing.

In reaction to surgery without anesthesia, some babies went into a trance or fell unconscious during or after their ordeals. Doctors said they fell asleep and were fine!! However, many babies died - though not immediately - from shock following surgery. Death was their message.

Since 1986, many doctors have changed their minds about infant surgery without anesthesia. Medical societies have generally made new commitments to give babies the same consideration in regard to pain control as they do other patients.

If this new path is followed, the total number of pain-traumatized babies could diminish each year. Meanwhile, no one really knows what the consequences to society will be for inflicting so much pain on so many premature babies. Pain feeds rage.

NICU babies are growing up: the very first graduates are now approaching age 30. Their ranks are constantly swelling as those from about 700 nurseries join them. If the percentage of premature babies stays around 10%, it means we are adding about 400,000 per year. We should carefully assess the long-term consequences of such a vast social experiment.

Birth And The Origins of Violence: Unborn Babies Feel Pain

With increasing acceptance of newborn pain perception, the debate now shifts to whether your unborn baby can perceive pain. Well, yes he does!

This is shown by a team of London neonatologists who found that during intrauterine - inside the uterus - needling, the baby mounts a full plasma cortisol and beta-endorphin stress response indicative of pain.

Their study of 46 unborn babies during intrauterine blood transfusions revealed an increase of 590% of b-endorphin and 183% increase of cortisol after ten minutes of the invasive fetal surgery. Even the youngest preemie babies showed a strong response.

In NICU nurseries, pain and suffering are being reduced by several promising trends:

Whatever happens in future NICU nurseries, we must understand that the experience of prematurity is formative in its impact.

For example, Stiefel and colleagues found that preterm babies studied at 12 and 18 months of age show greater sensitivity to even low levels of stress and show less ability to modulate distress once aroused. Also, they do not relate to toys in the same way as full-term babies do.

Their way of reacting to life carries a greater potential for emotional imbalance and loss of control - because they were prematurely born.

Birth And The Origins of Violence: Infant Bonding

Ever since the pace-setting work of pediatricians Klaus and Kennell on maternal infant bonding in 1976, attention has been repeatedly drawn to the destructive effects of untimely separations.

In animal studies, the profound effects of separation in the post-partum - after birth - period have been well documented. And they have a profound effect on infant bonding. Separation is both a physical and emotional experience for a baby and can begin anytime in the womb or after birth. Whenever it occurs, it is a stroke of violence.

Few things can compare with the oneness between mother and baby during pregnancy. The connections are total and holistic... embracing mind, emotion, and sensation. In this intimate world, babies know when they are not wanted, and if rejection persists, the harm worsens and infant bonding may not be possible.

Note: It has now been proven that the brain is very platic and bonding is possible at all times. HOWEVER, what comes naturally at birth can - and does - require much work and heartache to succeed later. There are many attachment disorders that are a nightmare for the people who have to deal with them.

This was thoroughly documented by the landmark study that followed several cohorts of unwanted babies in Finland, Sweden, and the former Czechoslovakia over a period of thirty years. As their children's lives unfolded, they proved to be at greater risk for social and psychiatric problems, and were more often delinquent.

Rejection and post-partum separation paves the road to criminal violence.

This evidence is also coherent with the thesis of Ken Magid that children with no conscience are those who never had a close relationship with anyone. They did not have the benefits of infant bonding.

Psychologist Andrew Feldmar encountered four adolescents who were repeatedly attempting suicide at the same time each year. When he had put all the facts together, he learned from their mothers that their suicidal compulsion was occurring each year around the time their mothers had tried to abort them - something the adolescent children had never consciously known.

The same fetal sensitivity shown by these self-destructive youth is put to positive use in programs of prenatal stimulation. In every program which has been empirically tested, the efforts of parents to communicate love and welcome to their babies in the womb has been crowned with success. A prominent benefit has been the creation of strong mutual maternal infant bonding.

Security and peace are the natural products of communication and love.

Birth And The Origins of Violence: "Normal Birth" is Violent?

According to researchers, babies tell us that even "normal" birth is violent. Babies communicate this with their strong voices, their anguished facial expressions, and by vigorous movements of arms and legs.

Are they not famous for crying fiercely at birth?

Both parents and professionals expect this, smile nervously, and call it "healthy." Birth cries are not yet taken seriously, although most of them are clearly a reaction to violence. Indeed most homebirth babies rarely cry but rather take their first breath and promptly look for their mother's eyes.

Screaming babies tell us that something IS wrong.

Although many birth professionals have changed their attitude about infant cries, the prevailing practice is to tolerate it and to continue painful newborn routines regardless of the crying. Most of the time, there is no goal of preventing crying.

A psychological approach would be to ask why a baby is crying, and then would work to eliminate the possible causes.

French obstetrician Frederick Leboyer in his book - Birth Without Violence - led us in that direction by comparing anguished baby faces with blissful faces.

When newborn babies cry intensely and are impossible to console, pediatricians often become resigned and counsel parents to accept "colic" as a difficult developmental phase.

Psychologist Aletha Solter sees colicky crying as meaningful and potentially therapeutic and teaches parents how to facilitate this.

Birth And The Origins of Violence: Some Babies Are Born Smiling

Early psychological research on birth left researchers with the impression that birth was always violent and painful for babies. Certainly, birth can be painful, but what about those contented babies? What are they telling us?

Can birth without violence be a standard?

Obstetrician Frederick Leboyer was one of the first to look seriously at newborn faces and recognize what they were saying. He got the message and started to rearrange obstetrical practices to suit the babies, he:

Dimmed the lights

Moved the baby more slowly and gently

Created a hushed atmosphere

Left the cord intact

Put baby on the mother

Waited to observe the baby until he settled down

Provided bath water near womb temperature

He was the first to coin the term Birth Without Violence.

This was truly a stroke of genius.

Why hadn't anyone thought of this before?

The results? Faces changed from tortured and irritated to something more composed and - occasionally - the babies smiled!

Unfortunately, Leboyer's good influence has declined.

Birth And The Origins of Violence: Thailand's Smiling Babies

The world record for happy newborns probably belongs to Thailand, where smiling is more a tradition than a surprise.

In Thailand, the obstetrician who holds the record for the greatest number of smiling babies is Chairat Panthuraamphorn.

With inspiration from obstetrician and prenatal bonding pioneer Rene Van de Carr, Panthuraamphorn designed an experimental program of prenatal stimulation for parents in his hospital in Bangkok.

From about 20 weeks gestational age, mothers were encouraged to take time each day for a bath, to sit in a rocking chair, relax, look at a beautiful picture and listen to classical Thai music.

Panthuraamphorn recommended abdominal massage three times a week, along with breathing exercises, visualization of birth and bonding, and engaged experimental subjects in a multi-sensory program of speaking and singing to the child, playing a game with a bell, and other pleasant interactions.

When the babies were measured after birth, the experimental group proved to be significantly more advanced in a variety of measures - including smiling and laughing.

Nearly all of the experimental babies in Thailand smiled responsively during the first five days following birth, something not expected for about six more weeks. Half also smiled spontaneously during the first five days following birth.

The control infants were not as joyful: two out of 12 smiled responsively in the first five days, and three smiled spontaneously in the same period.

So, what are these babies teaching us?

They are teaching us that birth without violence is possible AND beneficial!

Birth And The Origins of Violence: Water Babies

Water babies are coming out smiling, too.

Statistics for them may be hard to assemble, but both stories and pictures document the fact that some water babies have emerged from the womb smiling, starting underwater!

One photo shows a baby on her mother's tummy, hand on the nipple, and smiling ear to ear seconds after birth. These babies seem to know their mothers have had an ecstatic experience...

...and they enjoyed a birth without violence.

They express "total peace," and wear a "Thank-You!" on their faces.

In an age of violence, we would do well to watch baby faces carefully and to believe what they are telling us. In the past, we have neither watched nor believed.

Conclusion to Birth And The Origins of Violence

The scientific response to baby faces and sounds has usually been to deny real emotion at birth - and most certainly before birth - so these expressions have not been of value.

Baby faces have not determined the direction of obstetrical practice, in spite of Leboyer's efforts.

We should see all pained, angry faces at birth in the context of the smiling faces. Smiling newborns have been trying to teach us a higher standard for birth: birth without violence as a foundation for life without violence. Can we make this a national goal, a "standard of practice" in obstetrics? It would make such a difference in our society.

Almost three thousand years ago, the Hebrew prophet Isaiah poetically described his vision of a world of safety and peace, a world without harm and destruction, where...

Babies leading us?

Can we let them?

We sincerely hope so.

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