Prime Time Replay:
Dr. Thomas Verny
on the Effects of Prenatal Experience on Adulthood
MsgId: *breakthrough(2)
Date: Wed Oct 30 21:05:42 EST 1996
From: moderator At: 206.80.176.21
Welcome to Breakthrough Medicine. This evening we have an in-studio interview with Dr. Thomas Verny, author of The Secret Life of the Unborn Child.
MsgId: *breakthrough(3)
Date: Wed Oct 30 21:06:30 EST 1996
From: moderator At: 206.80.176.21
Dr. Verny (Dr.V): Hi, it's nice to be here.
MsgId: *breakthrough(4)
Date: Wed Oct 30 21:07:19 EST 1996
From: moderator At: 206.80.176.21
Moderator: Dr. Verny, this evening we'd like to discuss your research on how pre and perinatal experience affects the adult.
MsgId: *breakthrough(6)
Date: Wed Oct 30 21:14:17 EST 1996
From: moderator At: 206.80.176.21
Dr.Verny: I think it's a difficult question to answer because traumas are very difficult to measure scientifically. What may be traumatic to one person may only be stressful to another and may only registered by a third person. For example, if a mother gets kicked in the stomach while she's pregnant, this may cause a variety of reactions, all the way from death to the baby to apparently no effect whatsoever.So what we have here is an example of an acute trauma. So that's one class of traumas. Another class of traumas would consist of chronic traumas, in other words, continued or repeated stressful injuries to the unborn child. This could take expression in , for example, in being kicked repeatedly again and again day after day, being slapped, screaming, fights, chronic drug abuse, smoking, alcoholism, these would all be examples of not only physical and chemical injuries, but also psychological trauma.
One of the basic theoretical constructs of pre and perinatal psychology is that everything that happens to the mother, everything that she eats, drinks, inhales, everything that she feels and thinks, is directly communicated to her unborn child.
MsgId: *breakthrough(12)
Date: Wed Oct 30 21:21:14 EST 1996
From: moderator At: 206.80.176.21
Moderator: I think the human condition has unfortunately always had something extreme possibly going on while woman are pregnant. Wars, for example. Has evolution compensated for this?
MsgId: *breakthrough(13)
Date: Wed Oct 30 21:22:47 EST 1996
From: moderator At: 206.80.176.21
Dr. Verny: First of all, pregnant mothers have not partaken greatly in wars, its usually the men who go out there and fight; secondly, most mothers who live in an environment or a culture which allows them to be in touch with their bodies, those mothers usually take very good care of their bodies during the nine months that they're pregnant.There are many so-called primitive cultures where pregnant women are encouraged to live in a stress-free environment and are told or taught to not even look at anything that might be disgusting. One of the problems with our culture is that people in our culture have really lost touch with their own bodies. They don't listen to signals from their own bodies, such as pain, for example, and when they do hear the signals then they take some drugs in order to drown out the noise from the signals, so to speak.
Also, we have become increasingly scientifically minded and consider many of the formerly beneficial prescriptions for pregnant women as old wives tales and pay no attention to them. So, I think that evolution has done what it could, but I think that we in our arrogance have started to put our faith and trust in the god of science and as a result of that we subject the unborn baby in the womb to constant bombardment of toxins, of all kinds, both chemical and psychological, hormonal and physical.
MsgId: *breakthrough(18)
Date: Wed Oct 30 21:30:22 EST 1996
From: moderator At: 206.80.176.21
Moderator: When the pregnant woman has had a difficult pregnancy, with some of the negative stimulation outside of her control, how can she compensate afterwards to help the baby?
MsgId: *breakthrough(19)
Date: Wed Oct 30 21:33:02 EST 1996
From: moderator At: 206.80.176.21
Dr. Verny: I'd like to state a preamble to my answer to that question. And that is that we have to realize that the unborn child at least from the six months after conception is a much more mentally and emotionally developed human being than we have given him or her credit in the past. It is now scientifically proven that during the last three months of pregnancy the unborn child is a sensing, feeling, aware and remembering human being.The sooner the pregnant mother and the father of the child can begin to relate to that unborn child the better for all parties concerned. So, you ask me what can a mother do if she's had a difficult pregnancy, my answer is that she should start to communicate and to bond with the unborn child right from the beginning, right from the time that she knows she is pregnant.
Mothers and fathers need to appreciate the fundamental humanity of their unborn child. Her need, in other words the child's need, for love and contact and how to give it. What can mothers and fathers do in terms of communicating with their unborn children? They can do simple things, non-electronic, non-computers, they can talk, sing, touch, massage, play, dance, they can do all these things with the unborn child right from the beginning.
If there is an upsetting event, if for example mother and father had an argument, it would be helpful if the mother talked to the baby and explained to the baby that she had an argument with her husband or partner but it has nothing to do with the baby and both of them still love the baby, and they are looking forward to having the baby.
MsgId: *breakthrough(23)
Date: Wed Oct 30 21:39:10 EST 1996
From: moderator At: 206.80.176.21
Moderator: Dr. Verny, what about those circumstances when there is no father for the mother to talk to, in those difficult circumstances when she's under a lot of stress. What should she do?
MsgId: *breakthrough(24)
Date: Wed Oct 30 21:41:54 EST 1996
From: moderator At: 206.80.176.21
Dr. Verny: All the research shows that its very important for expectant mothers to have emotional support during pregnancy and delivery. If a father isn't present then a midwife, or a close friend should be present, there should be someone who will give emotional support. Alot of mothers particularly from dysfunctional families will often call on their mother to give them support. Well, if there mother's would know how to give them support then they wouldn't have been in a dysfunctional family, would they? So it's very important for a pregnant woman to chose someone who truly can be supportive , caring and nourishing.For example, I had one patient whose father was a physician. She hadn't spoken to him for about five years. They had had nothing but bad words with each other in the past. And while she was in the delivery room he barged in telling everybody of course that he was a doctor, which he was, and of course the nurse thought that he was an obstetrician, and let him, but she was upset and asked him to leave because she knew that he was a very negative person. That was good on her part, it was the right thing to do, but nonetheless it upset her. So, it's really important to only be surrounded by people who you, the pregnant mother feels good about.
MsgId: *breakthrough(26)
Date: Wed Oct 30 21:47:40 EST 1996
From: moderator At: 206.80.176.21
Moderator: Dr. Verny, you recently delivered a paper entitled "Birth and Violence" in Budapest. You mention an intriguing idea in your paper, that every biological process has a psychological correlate. Can we talk about that a little in relation to the birth process?
MsgId: *breakthrough(28)
Date: Wed Oct 30 21:50:24 EST 1996
From: moderator At: 206.80.176.21
Dr. Verny: Because every biological process has a psychological correlate, everything that happens to us especially at the beginning of life, permanently affects us. Whether your mother was awake or asleep when you were born, whether you were delivered vaginally or by c-section, whether you roomed in with your mother or spent four weeks in an incubator, these things matter enormously.We all decry the fact that this planet is slowly being violated and poisoned by its inhabitants. We rail helplessly against the rising tide of child abuse, wife battering, drug addiction, serial murder, warfare and suicide. We denounce, damn and blame everything and everybody. The solution escapes us because we haven't looked for it in the right place. We have been blind to our beginnings.
So, where does a person first experience feelings of love, rejection, anxiety and sadness? Where does a person first learn about interacting with people in the world. Where are basic character traits formed? The answer, in the first school we all attend, our mothers womb. It is here that we receive our introductory course in love, neglect, hate , anxiety, trust and empathy. It is here that we need to look for the roots of violence.
MsgId: *breakthrough(31)
Date: Wed Oct 30 21:56:52 EST 1996
From: moderator At: 206.80.176.21
Moderator: Can we touch a little on the correlation between violent behavior and birth experience?
MsgId: *breakthrough(32)
Date: Wed Oct 30 22:00:55 EST 1996
From: moderator At: 206.80.176.21
Dr. Verny: We have some interesting research which shows a link between violence and birth and post natal experiences, also between birth and suicide, and birth and drug addiction. Very briefly, I'll mention three studies. In 1960, Mednick studied the records of violent criminals in the Danish penal system, and 15 of the 16 most violent criminals were found to have had an extraordinary difficult birth and the sixteenth had an epileptic mother. The second study , a recent Danish study, shows 15 violent criminals and 24 property criminals, who were compared with 177 nonoffenders. And delivery complications such as ruptured uterus, umbilical cord prolapse, difficult labor, etc, predicted violent offending especially in subjects whose parents were psychiatrically disturbed.The third study is by Raine, at the university of southern california, who reports a significant association between birth complications and early maternal rejection, on one hand, and violent crime at age 18, on the other. While only 4.5 percent of the subjects had both risk factors, the small group accounted for 18 percent of all violent crime.
MsgId: *breakthrough(34)
Date: Wed Oct 30 22:05:51 EST 1996
From: moderator At: 206.80.176.21
Moderator: Dr. Verny, are obstetricians and pediatricians trained to help mothers compensate for pre and perinatal trauma, or help mothers have a more positive prenatal experience?
MsgId: *breakthrough(35)
Date: Wed Oct 30 22:08:33 EST 1996
From: moderator At: 206.80.176.21
Dr. Verny: No, they are not trained and by and large they resist hearing, absorbing and acting on this new knowledge. For example, I heard from a lady who during her pregnancy experienced suddenly a loss of contact, of communication with her unborn baby. She went to have an ultrasound and it was found that her baby had died. She told her obstetrician, he said, tell Thomas Verny, don't tell me. A true story, just not interested, its all hocus pocus is how many feel.I'd like to tell our audience that if they wish to get more information about pre and perinatal psychology, or any subjects related to birth, please look for the Birth Psychology page off the Association for Pre and Peri Natal Psychology and Health (APPPAH), based in San Diego, California, beginning November 1 (we hope).
MsgId: *breakthrough(37)
Date: Wed Oct 30 22:13:04 EST 1996
From: moderator At: 206.80.176.21
Moderator: Dr. Verny, our time is up, and I want to thank you for your time tonight on Breakthrough Medicine. I'm sure our audience enjoyed learning more about an experience that we all had to participate in, and that affected us in ways we may not have realized. So goodnight, and thank you again for joining us.
MsgId: *breakthrough(38)
Date: Wed Oct 30 22:14:03 EST 1996
From: moderator At: 206.80.176.21
Dr. Verny: Thank you for allowing me to talk about my favorite subject. Goodnight!
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