Birth Imprinting: From Womb to World
Finding out that you are expecting can be one of the most exciting times of a new mom’s life. More than likely, they will spend the next nine months studying what is the safest car seat or crib, what theme they should make the nursery, or looking for a pediatrician to look after their precious newborn. Talk about overwhelming! New research shows that all that stress of making all those decisions can directly affect the beautiful little baby they are growing. Birth Imprinting is the term that refers to the process by which prenatal, perinatal, and post-natal experiences imprint upon the limbic system of the baby, causing lifelong effects.
For starters, our limbic system is the complex system of nerves and networks in the brain that involve several areas of the cortex concerned with instinct and mood. It controls the basic emotions (fear, pleasure, anger) and drive (hunger, dominance, and care of offspring). Not only is the umbilical cord providing blood and nutrients to this little baby, but it’s also providing a very important nerve supply! This is important because all the stress of those decisions and many others can directly affect the baby. They will also feel the stress of all those decisions. Therefore, keeping moms’ stress levels lower is super important to the health of their babies. Luckily, in our office, we can measure how mom is adapting to stress via our HRV or Heart Rate Variability.
Pregnancy is naturally going to increase the stress response in the mom because growing a human is very taxing on the human body. All these other decisions are just adding on, and it’s easy to see how a mom can get overwhelmed. This is exactly why we love seeing pregnant moms in our office. Not only can we help mom with her ability to handle stress and feel comfortable, but we also get to help the baby that is growing inside of her. This is how we can use birth imprinting to our advantage and allow for healthy signals to get passed on, which tends to lead to better birthing outcomes and fewer interventions. Consistent chiropractic is one of the best decisions you can make when you find out that you are expecting!