Maternal Thoughts/Emotions

Out of the deep, my child, out of the deep,
Where all that was to be, in all that was,
Whirled for a million eons thro' the vast
Waste dawn of multitudinous eddying light -
Out of the deep, my child, out of the deep,
Thro' all this changing world of changeless law
And every phase of ever heightening life,
And nine long months of ante-natal gloom,
Thou comest.

--Alfred Lord Tennyson

• Unborn Babies Listen to a Mother's Thoughts: Cross-Cultural Reports
• Scientific Research on a Pregnant Mother's Thoughts
• Pregnancy Taboos
• Subtle Imprinting and Pregnancy Taboos
• Native American Pregnancy Taboos
• African Pregnancy Taboos
• Ayurvedic Pregnancy Taboos
• Separation of Life from Death
• Blueprint of the Baby's Body: Torkom Saraydarian

• Hippocrates and Serenus -- What a mother is thinking can transmute the fetus in different ways.

• Leonardo da Vinci -- The things desired by the mother are often found impressed on parts of the child who the mother carried at the time of the desire. . . . one and the same soul governs the two bodies, and the same body nourished both.

• Paracelsus -- An infant in the mother's womb is as much in the hands and under the will of the mother as clay in the hands of the potter, who from it makes whatever pleases him. Any strong desire, appetite or inclination can be impressed upon the fetus.

• Ella Wheeler Wilcox -- It is not so much what you are doing, my dear madame, before your child is born, as what you are thinking which molds its character. Watch yourself that you do not indulge in disagreeable moods. Forgive your enemies and wish them well. Cast out bitterness and anger. You are no longer your own mistress; remember, you belong to your unborn child.

  Avoid thinking of anyone you do not like, or dwelling on disagreeable or annoying events. When depression moods come, get out in the open air and do deep breathing exercises.

• Helen P. Blavatsky -- A pregnant woman is physically and mentally in a highly impressible state. . . . her intellectual faculties are weakened and she is affected to an unusual degree by the most trifling events. Her pores are opened, and she exudes a peculiar cutaneous perspiration; she seems to be in a receptive condition for all the influences of nature. Her illnesses are imparted to the child and often the child absorbs them entirely to itself; her pains and pleasure react upon the child's temperament as well as its health; great men proverbially have great mothers, and vice versa.

• Corinne Heline -- Imagination, the image-building principle, is particularly active in a woman, and increases her responsibility as a mother during the prenatal periods of her offspring.

• Torkom Saraydarian -- A mother is privileged to have a female body through which she can build those characteristics and give those inspirations which sustain that human being on the path of righteousness, beauty, creativity and goodness. A mother is privileged to have a female body through which she has the power to create the future of humanity.

• Harold W. Percival -- Pregnant women with strong desires or holding tenaciously to a thought have shown that strange results may sometimes be produced by the invisible and psychic influences prevailing on the form plane during fetal development. Marks have been made on the body of the child, due to a picture held in the thoughts of its mother and then built out by angels. Strange appetites have been impressed, fierce desires engendered and peculiar tendencies implanted in the child; or birth was accelerated or retarded in consequence of some thought of its mother.

  The mother often supposes that she caused the child's birth marks or tendencies, in reality, she has been impelled to act by the child's own past [previous life] thoughts. She has not interfered with the child's destiny. Her actions are the instrument through which her child receives just payment for a similar act done to another in a prior life.

  Thus a couple who are pure in mind and body will attract a soul whose destiny requires such conditions. The child's destiny is determined prior to conception. The mother cannot change the character and tendencies of the child once conception takes place. The utmost that she can do is to interrupt or postpone their expression.

  Nonetheless, the pregnant mother should hold herself to a pure life and think on lofty subjects, thereby avoiding improper thoughts.

• Sri Lanka -- The fetus is sensitive to temperature changes in the mother's blood. If she becomes angry, her blood temperature rises. The baby may then change position in the womb to avoid subsequent discomfort. Due to the small space, however, the baby becomes cramped or uncomfortable. This may impair the baby's formation resulting in a crippled or handicapped child at birth.

  Fear or constant anxiety about family members, especially her husband, also change the temperature of the pregnant mother's blood causing it to be perpetually cold. Thus the baby's circulation is retarded causing a possible hole in the child's heart.

• Ayurveda -- A pregnant woman who experiences verbal abuse and physical assault will birth an epileptic child. If she experiences constant grief, her child will be fearful, thin and short-lived. If she always thinks ill of others, she will birth an envious child who is subjugated to women. If she is angry, her child will be fierce, deceitful and jealous.

• China -- The pregnant woman must look at proper colors and listen to proper sounds. If she fails to keep her heart free from wild fancies and fears of wickedness at the moment her child receives the vitalizing fluid, the child will be violent, undisciplined, unsightly and immoral.

  History records that the characters of Tan Chu, the unworthy son of Emperor Yao and Shang Chun, the degenerate son of Emperor Shun, were formed while still in the womb.

• India -- The fetus develops emotions after three to four months, and can feel mother's positive or negative emotions. These emotions make a print on the unborn child's mind. It may create a permanent tendency in the child to behave in a certain way.

  Various sources report that the effect may leave a permanent mark the unborn child if it is strong enough and occurs at a vulnerable period in the baby's development.

• Fox -- The unborn child understands what his mother is saying, and will abandon her via miscarriage if she is quarrelsome.

• Lummi -- Unborn child hears what his future relatives are saying and knows what they are think. He leaves them before birth if they have negative thoughts.

• Hawaii -- If the parents are active during the pregnancy and interested in their work, the baby will be industrious, and conversely if they are lazy.

• Egypt -- When a pregnant woman is upset, the child is unhappy and makes the mother physically ill. Spontaneous abortion may even occur.

• Bella Coola -- Even the pregnant woman's excitement from being startled by a small animal or reptile may be sufficient to damage the fetus.

• Yuman -- Expectant mothers are advised: "Don't take something too much into your heart."

• Sanpoil and Nespelem -- If the husband or wife expresses sarcasm or an arrogant retort during the wife's pregnancy, the child becomes ill-tempered and impudent. If the husband laughs at elderly or crippled people, the baby will be born crippled.

  The pregnant woman never incurs someone's ill will or insults anyone lest they can inflict misfortune upon her unborn child. Likewise if the husband makes any critical, insulting, boastful, or facetious remarks in the presence of a shaman, the baby would probably never be born and his wife would die.

• Nepal -- If a pregnant woman fights or quarrels, the baby will come out fighting in childbirth, causing much pain. Later, the baby will grow up always fighting and arguing. For that reason, pregnant women must stay away from village gossip.

• Niger Ibo -- Combatant activity puts a pregnant woman at risk of physical injury, and shows contempt for life -- a sort of "don't care-whether-the-child-dies-or-not" attitude. Therefore, a woman with child must be restrained from quarrels and arguments.

• Dr Thomas Verny -- The womb establishes the child's expectations. If it has been a warm loving environment, the child is likely to expect the outside world to be the same. This produces a predisposition toward trust, openness, extroversion and self-confidence. If that environment has been hostile, the child will anticipate that his new world will be equally uninviting. He will be predisposed toward suspiciousness, distrust and introversion. Relating to others will be hard, and so will self-assertion. Life will be more difficult for him than for a child who had a good womb experience.

• Dr Tony Lipson -- The womb is the child's first world. The changes that occur before birth and their importance in our later development easily eclipse all that comes after birth. Those first nine months are crucial in determining and influencing our physical and psychological life.

• Dr Beatriz Manrique -- The world's largest experiment in prenatal stimulation and bonding at Central University of Venezuela has been studying 684 families from the prenatal age of five months gestation with follow up to six years of age. This ten-year study concludes that attention and affection, caresses, sensory stimulation, and communication in utero through auditory, visual, and tactile stimuli reach the baby's psyche and create an emotional and intellectual head start. Love can be taught. Bonding, love, respect, stability and well-being begin in the womb.

  We did not find violence in the members of the families that participated. Such a program, begun in the prenatal stage of life, undermines several of the causes of later violence and continues to pay dividends year after year of life.

• Dr Halliday -- The clinical impression that patients who develop recurring depressive states in adult life frequently provide a history -- if this can be obtained and confirmed -- showing that the mother was grievously disturbed emotionally during the intrauterine phase of the patient.

• Dr Lester W. Sontag -- Pregnant mothers who undergo severe emotional stresses typically birth a child who is a hyperactive, irritable, squirming, crying child who cries for his feeding every two or three hours. He empties his bowels at unusually frequent intervals, spits up half his feedings and generally makes a nuisance of himself. He is to all intents and purposes a neurotic infant when he is born -- the result of an unsatisfactory fetal environment.

• Research indicates that as early as ten to fifteen weeks, most fetuses react quickly by moving within seconds when their mothers cough or laugh.

• A pregnant mother accidentally received an electric shock while ironing clothes. Her baby sat bolt upright and immobile in the womb for two days -- long after the mother recovered from the non-lethal shock.

• Pregnant mothers viewed brief portions of a violent movie. Their fetuses became just as upset as their mothers.

• When a psychotic husband pursued his pregnant wife, both the mother and the baby in the womb were alarmed, as measured by their heart and respiratory activity.

• Giannakoupoulos et al, 1994, England -- The fetus mounts a full plasma cortisol and beta-endorphin stress response indicative of pain during intrauterine needling. A study of 46 fetuses during intrauterine blood transfusions revealed an increase of 590% of beta endorphin and 183% increase of cortisol after ten minutes of the invasive fetal surgery. Even the youngest preemies showed a strong response.

• Paracelsus -- The pregnant woman's imagination can distort and deform the child in the womb. In this manner, many wonders are produced where there are no physical peculiarities in the parents.

• Cornelius Agrippa - "Many monstrous generations proceed from the monstrous imagination of a woman with child." One pregnant woman felt religious horror upon contemplating a picture of the hairy Saint John the Baptist which hung in the room she occupied throughout pregnancy. She birthed a daughter who who was rough and hairy.

• Dr. Ashley Montagu -- My mother's cousin birthed a daughter in London with a "zeppelin" mark on her left cheek (early 1916). On the night of the child's birth, there was a zeppelin raid on London. I recall: "The alleged association greatly puzzled me. How could a zeppelin raid produce a zeppelin mark on a baby, especially one that was ready to be born?"

• Ozark people -- A pregnant woman witnessed the fatal shooting of a man and his blood spattered on her face. Her baby was born with a red mark on his cheek.

• England -- A dog frightened a pregnant woman by jumping up and putting its paws on her stomach. Shortly afterward, she birthed a son with deformed hands.

• Hungary -- If a pregnant woman looks upon something strange or abnormal, the baby will be born with an irregularity.

• Torkom Saraydarian -- Certain Asian communities forbid clown shows and loathsome pictures to enter a pregnant woman's home because they were "masquerades of the Divine Creation and distorted the archetypes in higher levels."

• Corinne Heline -- Formation of the organs of a fetus always marks a particularly sensitive condition for the incoming Spirit; it is a time when any unfavorable condition in the environment of the mother reacts most harmfully, often causing a retardation in the development of an organ, which, in turn, causes a deformity.

• Chinook -- A pregnant woman avoids looking upon suffering or offensive sights. If she sees a snake, the child will look like a reptile. If she looks at a blind dog, the child will be blind.

• Mohave -- A mother-to-be is careful not to play too much with the dolls the Mojaves fashion out of baked clay. Otherwise, her baby will look like the doll.

• Lummi -- The baby is born a freak if the prospective mother looks at bizarre ceremonial masks, deformed people or snakes. "She swallows if she observes anything which she thinks will improve the child's character; she spits at anything she detests."

• Niger Ibo -- If a pregnant woman gazes upon a creature with an unsightly face, such as a monkey, the baby will resemble what she has seen.

• Bafut -- The pregnant woman avoids watching masked dancers otherwise the child will look like the mask.

• Ibo -- If a pregnant woman is faced with a frightening sight, she avoids looking at it and covers her navel with her hands so that the baby won't see it. Otherwise, the infant will resemble the person with the defective body, the monkey or the grotesque masquerade.

• Gabbra -- Pregnant women avoid watching television. Otherwise their babies might become as unusual as the fantastical images on the screen.

• Constantly sleeping on the back: umbilical cord gets twisted around the baby's neck.

• Habitual sexual intercourse: a physically ill-formed, shameless offspring who will be subjugated to women. (Charaka advises celibacy after conception)

• Stealing: a lazy, malicious, inactive child.

• Constant sleep: drowsy, dull offspring with weak digestion.

• Addiction to wine: constant thirst, short memory and fickle-minded child.

• Addiction to pork: redness in a offspring's eyes, sudden obstruction of respiration and excessive roughness of the hair

• Addiction to fish: delayed closure or non-closure.

• Addiction to sweets: an obstinate urinary disorder including diabetes, dumbness, and excessive corpulence. (This excludes milk because of its wholesome effects.)

• Addiction to sour foods: bleeding from different parts of body and skin and eye diseases in offspring.

• Addiction to salty foods: early onset of wrinkles, graying of hair, and baldness in offspring.

• Addiction to pungent foods: foods having weak, deficient of semen or sterile.

• Addiction to bitter foods: weak and emaciated offspring.

• Addiction to astringent foods: offspring who are gray in complexion, constipated and tympanitic.

• Jamaica -- The child can be "marked" if the pregnant mother wrings a chicken's neck and becomes emotionally disturbed about killing the fowl. Her child can be born with some parts of the looks belonging to the fowl.

• Jamaica -- A pregnant woman may enter the room when a corpse is lying in the "booth" at a "set-up" for the dead, but she must not look at a dead body. If she does, her blood is chilled to the temperature of the corpse's: "Your body get cold. Energy leave you." Both the baby and even the mother may lose their life immediately or during childbirth. The younger mothers are most vulnerable.

• Zoroastrianism -- A mother-to-be abstains from contact with any dead or decomposing matter, even with a toothpick which may contain germs of disease.

• Thailand -- Expectant women must not watch a cremation or visit anyone seriously ill.

• Lummi -- The prospective mother must not watch the agonies of a dying animal or fish lest the infant experience the same suffering.

• Chinook -- If a woman with child looks at a corpse, her child will faint often.

• Thompson Indians -- If a pregnant woman looks at a corpse being prepared for burial, "the navel-string becomes twisted around the child, like the string tied around the corpse."

• Ozark people -- Pregnant women do not look at a corpse due to the belief that it can mark the child or even cause a stillbirth.