Scan barcode
sakusha's review
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
relaxing
fast-paced
4.0
A lot of the book just gives you new topics to write about in your journal and new things to visualize. The affirmations kind of seem like brainwashing, which I guess is useful if you’re a gullible person. It might set yourself up for disappointment to reassure yourself that the baby will be perfect when reality may turn out different. Still worth it to try these suggested techniques to bring about calm in you and your baby. I liked that the book had illustrations of how large the baby was inside the mother, and written descriptions of the development of the child and what the mother can expect her body to be going through.
Summary:
Throughout pregnancy:
- Classical music is good, but not all classical music. “British audiology expert Michele Clements has discovered that most unborn children shift to a state of alert relaxation when they are exposed to the Baroque compositions of Mozart and Vivaldi. On the other hand, when they hear long orchestral pieces by Bach, Brahms, and Beethoven, they demonstrate anxiety in the form of increased kicking and accelerated heart rate. (The same negative reaction is also triggered by hard rock music and the unpleasant sound of a pneumatic drill.) (4) The ideal classical music “moves to the tempo of 60-70 beats per minute, a rate very close to that of the resting human heart” (3-4). Listen to This type of music an hour twice a week for the entire pregnancy (8).
- Meditate by tensing your muscles one at a time, then relaxing them and breathing deeply, 20 minutes a day for the entire pregnancy (10).
- Keep a diary and try to write in it once a day (15). Record your dreams too (24).
1st month:
Tell yourself present tense positive affirmations for two minutes twice a day, first thing in the morning and just before going to bed (17, 21). The affirmations are things that you like about yourself or things that you want to be. Examples: “I am ____.” “I can ____.”
2nd month:
- When you’re feeling tired and you need energy, visualize something powerful that inspires you (33).
- Affirmations to your baby (36): You are loved and wanted. I love feeling you grow inside me. You are warm, secure, and happy. You are my baby and I want you more than anything in the world. All the cells, tissues, and organs in your body are now developing perfectly.
3rd month: Drawing, visualizing, imagining (73).
4th month: visualization, clay, partner conversations (99).
5th month:
- reading aloud or singing the same story/song once a day. The ideal song is lively, but not jarring, soothing but not sleep-inducing (110).
- All family members should talk to baby everyday (112).
6th month (133):
- (Belly) Dance 10-20 min twice weekly. “Avoid at all cost hard, driving rock music and discordant jazz pieces! (124)” (Lol. Just goes to show how common sense it is that those kinds of music suck.) Stop playing the song if the baby reacts with anxiety by kicking a lot.
- Massage belly for ten min, 2-5 times a week. “Whenever you feel your baby kick, stroke your abdomen as gently and lovingly as possible” (126).
- Visualize your sacred place for ten min (132). (Mine was a tropical island.)
7th month (160): rock your baby by doing rhythmic breathing 30 minutes, once a week, one hand 6 inches above abdomen, 5 seconds per inhale and exhale each.
8th month:
- tap or push on belly to play with baby for a few min (167).
- use affirmations in response to your fears (169).
- Rock your baby and sigh like ahhh when you exhale, two hands 6 inches above abdomen (172).
- Visualize holding a slowly opening flower, then imagine the flower superimposed over your pelvis, opening, then closing until it’s time to give birth (174-175).
9th month (185): visualization, affirmation.
Common pregnancy dream metaphors (23, 141):
architectural structures = womb
Animals = fetus
Water = notion of pregnancy and birth, amniotic fluid
tunnel or maze = Birth canal
Waves = contractions
Death or natural disaster = apprehension about birth
In the second and third trimester, large plants, buildings, and animals represent the baby, while the womb is represented by large buildings or caves (107, 141).
Interesting:
“Women who deeply wanted their babies had the easiest pregnancies and healthiest offspring; those who did not want their babies had more medical problems as well as more instances of low birth weight and premature and emotionally disturbed infants” (xxvi). More reason why moms who want abortions should not be refused them.
“With disturbing frequency, drug addicts were born in hospitals where doctors most often administered opiates, barbiturates, chloroform to women in labor. These drugs passed through the umbilical cord to the child. Jacobson suggests, making him more susceptible to drug addiction later in life” (52).
“Cesarean children seemed more intuitive and open to experience, while the vaginally born children seemed more conscientious and confident. Following this report, physician Lewis Bissell suggested that the increasingly large number of cesarean-born children could lean to an alteration in social attitudes throughout the world” (52). Phrased a different way, c-section babies were more unconfident and immoral; vaginally born kids were more logical and rigid. I bet the income of the parents correlates with vaginal births. The descriptions also seem to be c-section babies = emotional and liberal, and vaginal babies = more like CEO material, AKA conservatives. More c-sections means more liberals. No wonder we have so many. That and Hollywood brainwashing the rest of the world through the TV. I wonder how long it will take for the majority of the US to be conservative again. Conservatives likely have more babies than liberals, and liberals sterilize themselves by getting sex changes or being gay or having abortions. But when the conservative young adults go to college, they get a liberal brainwashing.