What your baby already feels before birth

One of the women who shaped my own work the most is Anna Verwaal. As a nurse and birth consultant she has spent more than thirty years studying how the period around conception, pregnancy and birth leaves a lasting imprint, on the baby, and on who we later become.

Verwaal holds that a child in the womb and during birth is already a conscious little being. What a baby feels and experiences in that period is stored by the body, and it can carry through later in life. That may sound abstract, but in practice you often notice it very concretely: in how someone deals with tension, with connection, with trust.

For expectant parents this is no reason to worry, more an invitation. If the way a child comes into the world truly matters, then every step you take towards a calm, present and connected birth is a gift that reaches further than the birth itself.

That is exactly why relaxation, breathing and a sense of safety play such a large role in our course. Because, as Anna Verwaal puts it so well, it is far easier to build a happy child than to help an adult heal later on.