Birth Imprints

Birth is one of our most momentous embodied experiences. And even though we don’t consciously remember this huge event in our lives, each of us carries the story of our birth etched in our body and psyche. We carry unconscious traces of somatic memory that can keenly influence our behavioral and personality patterns.

For example, it isn’t uncommon to see that the person born with the cord around his neck doesn’t like tight collars or tight spots…the person pulled out with forceps resents being rushed or forced to do things…the person born breech does things backwards…the person born after an unusually fast labor has fears about things moving too quickly…the person born after an unusually slow labor has fears of getting stuck…the person born prematurely never feels quite ready for anything…the person born by C-section can’t quite finish things, or often needs to be rescued.

This is an incomplete list, too simplistic, and all focused on negative imprints. There are as many birth imprints as there are births and individuals: each of us comes into physical existence with our own uniqueness, and our own unique ways in which the events of our birth inscribe patterns and tendencies.

For example, some people born after their mother’s labor was artificially induced are stubborn and will do things only on their own time, while others born after being induced just can’t seem to get going on their own, and constantly need that nudging from the outside. Indeed, birth experiences often leave a trace of something that we both fear and gravitate to, since it’s so familiar at such a fundamental, intangible level.

My specialty is birth trauma and encompassing the parents in the healing process of assisting the autonomic nervous system to reset and integrate to an embodied new experience. Once a month we hold mother and baby treatment days with two therapists so both mother and baby can release traumatic experiences following birth.

How CST helps
In this video we see the compression that takes place to the baby's head during birth. The natural movement of the baby in this position is often one 're-enacted ' during a Craniosacral treatment when the baby needs to find a new way to relieve residual strains connected to a strong emotion such as frustration, determination, fear, in that journey to life....the baby begins to simulate movements which resemble those seen in the video until a point is reached called 'Therapeutic Position' - this is where the new neurological re-patterning takes place ...from a place of calm and choice. Parents usually report that the baby is much calmer and at ease with better sleep, feeding and digestion patterns.

Deirdre specialises in babies and we hold double treatments every 3 weeks with 2 therapists to give mum some treatment too, often a wonderful experience of combined relaxation and letting go.