Pregnancy: How Emotions Affect Your baby
There is a lot of information available about the physical aspects of pregnancy, but how often do we consider the emotional changes, and, maybe more importantly, the ways that these emotions affect your baby.
It is normal for you to experience a wide range of emotions during pregnancy and post partum.
There may be highs and lows, anxiety, fear, excitement and a lack of confidence that you will be a good mother.
These are triggered in part by hormonal changes in your body. Some women are particularly sensitive to the increase in progesterone which can cause irritability.
In addition, pregnancy can highlight relationship challenges, insecurities and unrealistic expectations. It will also bring up issues from your own childhood and possibly issues that you picked up from your own parents during your gestation and early years.
There can be stresses such as what will the baby mean for life going forward, how will it impact your relationship with your partner and what will the financial implications be.
All of these emotions affect your baby..
So how do your emotions affect your baby?
Children are like emotional sponges. They pick up on the emotions of the adults in their life, especially those closest to them. They will sense these emotions even in the womb, and some children will hold onto these emotions, especially when the emotions are strong.
It is therefore important for the well being of both yourself and your child to resolve these emotions.
That does not mean repress them; in fact it means the opposite!
Find someone you can talk to, work through any issues you may have with other family members or your partner, express yourself. It is also best to try to avoid situations which you will find emotive.
Ideally you should seek to deal with any of your own emotional issues prior to getting pregnant. This can be emotions experienced during your life, or associated with your genes, so your parents, grandparents, great grandparents and so on. Clearing emotions prior to trying to get pregnant will increase the chances of being successful and ensure the best of health for both mom and baby.
Many of us have some sort of emotional trauma in our lives.
Case Study
I want to introduce you to “Josh”
Josh’s parents brought him to me when he was nearly 3 years old. They were seeking to address his ‘allergies’. He had suffered eczema and asthma from the time he was born, in addition to which, he was frequently sick and any small virus would end up in bronchitis.
When talking to his parents I was told that his mom had a very stressful time during pregnancy.
She had suddenly lost her brother, with whom she was very close. She was also told during the pregnancy, incorrectly as it turned out, that Josh was in fact a Down’s syndrome baby. As you can imagine, this caused her to experience intense emotional turmoil.
Every organ in the body is associated with a set of emotions.
In the case of the lungs these emotions are grief, loss, loneliness, sadness, all of which Josh’s mom had experienced very intensely during the pregnancy. This meant that Josh’s ‘allergies’ had an emotional root.
We used a combination of Reiki, Energy Healing and Natural Allergy Therapy to release these emotions from both Josh and his mom.
His asthma and eczema improved dramatically; he no longer needs his asthma medications and can get sick without developing bronchitis.
This really highlights how emotions affect your baby, and the importance of addressing the emotional issues of the people around a child, both during pregnancy and following birth.
Contact me for a free discovery session to find out how I can help you.