Birth is the most difficult and traumatic thing most of us will ever experience. As such it leaves a psychic imprint on our being that in most people remains un-healed throughout their lives. The pain and struggle at birth is so severe and so un-interpretable to the new born that it is buried quickly in the subconscious, left to fester and play itself out in our lives in ways they we are mostly unaware of. If you're not sure of the details of your birth pay attention to your emotional and physical reactions as you read the following birth types. Keep in mind that these are brief overviews that express common patterns of behaviour and that everyone internalizes their experience in their own way. THE NORMAL BIRTH After approximately nine months of floating in the womb, being fed food and oxygen on demand through the umbilical cord, embraced in the warmth of our mothers body, hearing her heart beat, sensing her mood and hormonal changes, and enjoying a sense of oneness and connectivity, the unborn child realizes that he has outgrown his paradise, that he can no longer survive in such a small space and is faced with the inevitability that he must leave or die. This often expresses itself as ’exit terror’ in relationships later in life, after enjoying a period of bliss, love and happiness with a partner you may start to feel trapped, suffocated, and desperate to leave without fully understanding your reasons. There may be a push-pull situation where you want to leave but find you can’t, or change your mind often about staying or leaving. Or you may run for your life as soon as you feel pressured in any way. ‘Feel’ is the important word here. If you have strong no exit terror it will be impossible for you to tell the difference between a loving, nurturing partner, and someone who is genuinely stifling and controlling you. This can be breathed out of the body by acknowledging and fully experiencing that primal fear of being stuck in the womb, allowing you to live in present time in relationships instead of being triggered by charges from the past. As the uterus starts to contract and the baby makes its way down the birth canal, a journey of just a couple of inches can take many hours. The baby undergoes many physical and emotional challenges. Her heart rate quickens as she uses her head to beat a path down a reluctant and tiny opening, squeezing herself tightly and pushing with all her might, fighting for her life, sensing the contraction, fear and pain of her mother, leaving behind forever the safety of the womb for the unknown world ahead, not knowing if she’ll make it but knowing that her only chance of survival is to push ahead. Finally she bursts out into the dry atmosphere, feeling the dizzying sense of spaciousness for the first time, and blinding surgical lighting. The cord is cut before she has a chance to take her first breath, she gasps in a state of panic and fear for her life, inhaling through the fluid still in her throat and nose is like breathing through mud. She is wrapped up tightly and taken away from her mother for an undefined period of time. This is what we call a normal birth, without any of the extra layers that complications can bring (read below). We are expected to survive it, forget about it and live as if it never happened. The truth is it happened to all of us, in one form or another, and we all survived. However, if anything nearly as traumatic happened to us adults we would immediately seek help, hospitalization, counselling, drugs, etc, to help us cope with the experience. An unprocessed birth script is an incomplete experience that will activate unconscious and often unhealthy patterns of behaviour in our life and relationships until we address them at their source. Caesarean Section Births C-section births are divided into two categories, scheduled and emergency. Scheduled C-sections are performed when for some reason a natural vaginal birth is not considered viable. They are scheduled in advance of the expected delivery date to avoid the mother going into labour naturally, hence even it is just a week or two before the baby would have naturally be born it is still a premature birth. Since the baby is not quite ready to come out there is a sense of being interrupted, even cheated of that last few days or weeks in paradise. Because c-section babies do not have to struggle to be born or fight to come out they also miss the close body to body contact and ‘’right of passage’’ phase that vaginal delivery offers. An incision is made in the uterus and the baby is lifted out without time to adjust or grasp the physical and emotional implications of the change they are undergoing. Scheduled c-section babies often have issues around timing since they were not even allowed to choose the time of their own birth. They can have a heavy charge around punctuality, resent feeling rushed, have trouble showing up on time, and often want to do things ahead of schedule. Often when c- section babies get into trouble or are under pressure later in life they expect and often manifest being rescued or pulled out to the situation by another. The positive programming of a c-section is that because they didn’t experience immense struggle at birth they often manifest serenity and ease especially when going through life changes, people often wonder why things are so easy for them. Emergency C-Sections Emergency c-sections are performed when labour has already begun and a complication has arisen that has made vaginal delivery impossible or too risky for mother and child. Often by the time a c-section takes place a long and difficult labour has been endured. The baby may be stuck, considered too big to deliver, have the cord wrapped around the neck or breech (feet or bottom first). Emergency c-section babies therefore usually have put up an enormous struggle and suffered a great deal but just can’t make it out alone. Later in life they also have the rescue me syndrome but usually only manifest support at the last minute after they have suffered to their limit. Emergency c-sections are performed to save the life of the child/mother; they are literally a matter of life and death. There can be a sense of the dramatic, of living in the margins, taking risks, flirting with death, living on a knife edge. (If you are an emergency c-section baby the reason for the c-section will also be relevant, read that birth type below) Incubator Babies It’s been said that incubator babies stay in the energetic incubator all their lives. Meaning that even when the physical walls of the incubator are removed the sense of being isolated, buffered, and separate remains. Incubator babies are deprived of the maternal touching, feeding, and holding that is so important in healthy development therefore they often either crave touch yet deprive themselves of it as adults avoiding closeness or attracting partners who don’t want to touch them, or they can go the other way completely and dislike touching altogether. Incubator babies effectively have to be born twice, once coming out of their mother and again coming out of the second womb - the incubator. Getting attention can be a sensitive issue as the sense of being ‘’on display’’ peered at and wondered about by worried adults is how they start in life. Often they are premature, small and weak, fed through a tube and breathed through a tube. Many incubator babies have issues with food and their weight later in life as a result. Often the mother is sent home while the baby remains in hospital increasing a deep sense of abandonment and aloneness within the baby. I’ve seen many incubator babies overcome all of this and make sense of their lives when put in this context and in the physical remembering and releasing that Rebirthing offers. Breech Births (two categories) Feet first and Bum first Although breech births would now be delivered by C-section in the past this was not always the case. This is a very painful way to be born for both mother and baby. Breech babies usually embody a strong thought that life is painful and difficult, or that they hurt others, or that their very existence is hurtful to others. Breech births come out the wrong way around. They can often have difficulty finding their way in life, choosing a career, a course of study, a place to live, a partner, etc. As birth is the completion or ending of the womb experience a violent painful breech birth often instils in the baby a deep fear of completing/ending anything, projects, education, relationships. More to come...... |
