The amount of family adjustment required during the year following birth is greatly underestimated. Motherhood may come easily to you, yet changes are inevitable and must be accommodated. Hormonal fluctuations can increase emotional sensitivity, but the feelings that arise are real responses to real changes- both physical and emotional.

Postpartum blues are common during the three months after childbirth. Mild sadness may well up as your body recovers from pregnancy and delivery and you adjust to the life changes that having a baby can bring. Isolation is the main cause of acute depression. Support groups for new parents can help you make contacts for baby-sitting and answer some of your needs for companionship. More important, a new-parents support group can banish the misunderstanding that motherhood is instinctual. It is not. Mothering is very much a learned experience. Much of what we know about it is learned unconsciously, relayed to us during childhood by those who cared for us.

The Myth of the Mothering Instinct

If we were held and cuddled in a loving and reassuring manner as infants, we automatically know how to do that with our own babies. Our bodies hold the knowledge, so we experience it as instinct. If you did not receive confident mothering in the arms of your own mother, you may find yourself unsure.

If this happens, you can establish a network of other mothers from whom you can learn now. Learning from others with a variety of childhood experience will help you understand your own needs. This is a prime time to find a healthy balance between your needs and your baby's needs.

Visualization for Bonding with Your Baby

This exercise can help you to gain perspective and get in touch with any past blockages that keep you from enjoyment of your baby. Refer back to your own blueprints for parenting in chapter 2. In the space provided, write down what, if anything, was missing from your own early experience of being mothered.

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Take time to identify feelings that might come up for your during the postpartum period. Visualize yourself as a baby, getting whatever it is that you needed. More holding, more secure cuddles, kisses on the cheek, being talked to softly- absorb these images fully. You may want to include your partner- even have him hold you in his arms- or share the exercise with a friend who can nurture and comfort you.

Then, after you have taken these moments for yourself, imagine your baby smiling up at you- looking cute and cuddly- and feel your love for your own child, growing with time, as your learn to love and care for this baby, too: getting to know each other, laughter and tears bonding you together now. You are remembering that time passes, seeing your child grow in your mind's inner eye-to three years, seven years, ten years, then to teenage years, sixteen years, eighteen years. . . to adulthood. A time of sharing seems so long but as you adjust to your baby, you will be amazed at how fast babies grow and how soon you will be watching yours leave home. . . to continue the cycle of life.

By gaining a perspective on your own childhood, with the help of a support group, a family counselor, or a friend, you can find what will help you nourish both yourself and your baby at the same time. Do not ignore these needs. If you get help now, your enjoyment of parenting will greatly increase. You deserve to enjoy your baby!

Within the first year after birth, most mothers experience complete adjustment to the new family constellation. Postpartum blues usually resolve within three months after delivery. Occasionally women experience severe depression, which must be professionally treated. Get whatever help you need. How you respond to your own needs and those of other family members forms the foundation for your family relationships.

Bonding after an Emergency Delivery

When babies have been separated from their mothers and fathers after birth due to medical intervention or other complications, they are sometimes extra sensitive to noise, strangers, or sudden changes in the environment. For days or weeks following birth these babies may be more irritable and fussy. They may be reacting to early deprivation.

These babies, as well as their mothers, may need special attention and loving care. In my work with women and their babies, I have discovered that emotional separation after birth, especially for a prolonged period, may trap both mother and baby in a loop of negative feedback. I believe that in such cases both mother and baby are in some way reliving the birth experience, unable to resolve the pain of early separation. When this is the case, simply taking time to heal the experience through visualization while the mother holds her baby, can calm them both. It can also create a positive change in their relationship. The following case illustrates the problem of oversensitivity resulting from emergency procedures at birth, and one way it can be resolved.

Alice delivered her daughter, Emma, by cesarean section due to distress during labor. Emma was taken by ambulance to another hospital immediately after birth. Emma's father stayed with Alice, so Emma was without family members around her until the following day, twelve hours after being born, at which time her father went to see her. Following observation and medical examination it was determined that Emma was, in fact, fine. She was returned to her mother three days after birth.

When Alice came to see me, two months after her baby's birth, she could not relax and appeared very nervous about her ability to care for Emma. She reported that she answered Emma's every cry, sometimes crying with her for hours at a time when she could not quite or comfort her. She loved her baby very much but was having an extremely difficult postpartum adjustment since Emma, who was rarely quiet and contented, usually screamed even when held. Alice had consulted with her pediatrician, who could find no physical reason for Emma's excessive irritability and heightened sensitivity.

I observed during the session that Emma startled and cried very suddenly and very loudly at almost every change in the environment. Her cries were piercing and frantic- unlike most babies, whose cries are usually shorter and who are more easily comforted.

As we reviewed her birth experience, Emma began to wail frantically. Alice said this was her usual behavior. I pointed out that the experience of being in a strange place and in strange hands during the days after birth may have made Emma particularly needy, and that Alice was, in fact, doing a wonderful job of mothering Emma through this unusual beginning. I suggested that Alice go back to the birth and imagine what it would have felt like to have held Emma in her arms immediately after birth. After all, she had missed this, but it did not stop her from being able to hold her now and imagine what her wish could have been for herself and for her baby.

Speaking over Emma's frantic screams, I instructed Alice to breathe and to relax, holding Emma close. I suggested she imagine the birth as she would have wished it to be and simply enjoy visualizing herself holding Emma and keeping her close after birth. She knew now that Emma was fine, and she could take that knowledge back with her to the time of birth, allowing it to change the picture back then, healing the past- holding her close and warm, no separation at all, just keeping her next to her after she was born ...

Within two minutes of visualizing and relaxing into a healing visualization of this imagery of bonding after birth, Emma abruptly- as abruptly as she had begun- stopped crying and looked around the room and at me for the first time. Alice and I continued to talk about the possibility that Emma had developed an overwhelming negative and fearful response to any change in her environment, however slight, based on her first experience of being whisked off in an ambulance with sirens blaring and no one to hold or comfort her through the many medical procedures she endured in the hours that followed. What a shocking way to enter the world! We also talked about the healing visualization, the feelings of holding Emma immediately after birth with no separation, and giving herself this healing experience now and throughout the next few weeks. Later in the session, Emma cried again, but much more quietly and she responded to Alice's holding- and imagery of holding her after the birth- by becoming quiet.

The most striking part of this story is the fact that from that day on, Emma's crying spells tapered off, soon becoming normal. She became consolable, and Alice's relationship with her baby was free to develop without undue strain. By the following month they were not only loving, but also enjoying one another.

I believe that some babies and mothers may find themselves in a negative-feedback loop after a very negative or difficult delivery experience. If it is not resolved, the baby may re-experience fear based on early trauma, which reactivates the mother's own trauma and unresolved emotions about the birth. These feelings are passed from one to the other in subtle body movements and tension. Women who have been separated from their babies due to medical emergencies often experience guilt and pain, which is reflected in how they hold their babies. I believe the healing visualization helped Alice and her baby reconnect in a new and different way.

Visualization for Distress at Birth

You may wish to construct you own images for healing if you feel your relationship with your baby is suffering unnecessarily because of feelings surrounding the birth. Usually this takes the form of an excessively irritable baby who is particularly sensitive to changes in the environment and reacts negatively and fearfully. The baby is usually difficult to console.

By allowing yourself to go back and visualize the experience as you would have liked it, paying particular attention to those moments when you wanted to hold your baby, or be alert and present, you change the movements of your body. Your touch will now communicate feelings of confidence rather than uncertainty. Babies do feel connected through your body, and feelings are physical. Healing visualization can affect your feelings, and your touch will soon impart calm and reassurance.

If you feel that you and/or your baby may have felt fear during labor, birth, or immediately afterward, and you believe it is inhibiting a positive relationship, go back to visualize the experience as you would have wished it to be. First, visualize it by yourself. Identify what you needed or wanted. Then, share it with your partner or a friend. If you wish, you can have someone help you visualize a change by repeating phrases to you that feel healing, such as seeing yourself hold you baby right after birth, taking your knowledge that your baby is safe and healthy back to a time when you had fear, holding that younger you who was afraid during or after the birth. . . Use whatever images work for you. Write them in the space provided.

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When you feel ready, close your eyes and visualize these images while holding your baby. Feel the contentment, healing, and love of these images communicated to your baby through your body, heart, and mind. This should take only three to five minutes. Then set the images aside, and continue to enjoy your baby.

These images and feelings will remain with you and can help you feel calmer and more confident in your mothering as time goes on. Your baby will respond to your experience.

Copyright 1993 by Shadow and Light Publications. Reprinted with permission from the author and publisher. This excerpt may not be reproduced in any manner, including electronic, without prior written consent from the publisher.