What Babies Can Teach us about Love and Resilience

You may have heard that babies are our teachers. They arrive still fresh with the aura of that mysterious source from which our beings emerge into a new life and return to at death. In the presence of that energy, we remember. We have the potential to learn. How can that translate into our lives?

Have you ever had the experience of being with a newborn baby? Have you ever forgotten it? For most people, meeting a newborn is like an awakening. A surge of love arises. It is hard to forget.

That love is our birthright. It is an important aspect of what it means to be human. And yet we forget as the busy-ness and challenges of life take over.

Love is supported by a bio-intelligence that expresses when the so-called love hormone, oxytocin, is present. Both mothers and babies secrete oxytocin as part of natural, uninterrupted birth. Unfortunately, medical interventions, including synthetic oxytocin, can prevent the love hormone from doing its work.

Falling in love at birth, bonding, and breastfeeding are all supported by natural oxytocin, as is birth of the placenta. When birth practitioners decide that labor needs to be started or is proceeding too slowly, synthetic oxytocin is often administered because it stimulates uterine contractions. While this mechanistic result is accomplished, it misses the emotional component natural oxytocin is so good at – love.

Women and babies who have been through a birth where oxytocin is less available, including when birth is induced or other interventions or traumas stimulate a surge of stress hormones, may have an experience of not feeling connected to each other. Bonding, like any form of love, requires respectful, sensitive presence. Where it has not been available at birth, oxytocin, bonding and love can be stirred in a relatively quiet, peaceful environment where mother and baby can feel safe and protected. The stress chemistry can then begin to settle and nature’s original blueprint can be retrieved.

When I work with babies and their parents, I am always awestruck witnessing the healing that can occur with simple respect, acknowledgment, and safety. This may require the space in which to express and release emotions and nervous system activation remaining from traumatic experiences. Both mothers and babies need a chance to communicate about their experience while being supported to orient to the relational safety and support of the present moment. When this is accomplished, miracles happen.

I have witnessed fussy, angry babies or even older children settle through prenatal and birth therapy combined with Biodynamic Craniosacral therapy. Usually their mothers need to support to settle first. Then the child has a calm fulcrum to rest into. Once what needs to be processed has been integrated, bonding just happens. Baby makes eye contact and nestles into mother’s chest. Their hearts can resonate as in the womb. Where breastfeeding has been an issue, it usually resolves. Given a chance, baby finds their way to the breast and latches on. Everyone smiles and sighs.

I see this as a brilliant demonstration of resilience. Within a field of love, it seems that almost anything is possible. This also applies to adults who address their very early wounding within a relationally safe, warm, accepting, receptive context, such as we experience in somatic prenatal and birth therapy, whether individually or in small womb surround process workshops.

If the love that babies can represent is honored from the first moments, it is highly contagious. If we pay attention, if we listen, if we let go of our mental plans and allow ourselves to be receptive, babies can teach us. Are you willing to learn?

This may involve doing your own healing so you can be more present and receptive. This is often not an easy path, but, in my experience, it is more than worthwhile! It may even be what our planet most needs just now as we meet an onslaught of challenges.

May all beings be peaceful. May all beings be happy. May all beings be free.