Creating a Physical Body
Parents provide the immediate physical environment which will determine whether the baby’s equipment for living will be poor, average, or optimal. Science has only slowly found the connection between deficiencies of folic acid (one of the B vitamins) and the profound malformations of anencephaly and spina bifida, defects which occur when the neural tube fails to close 18 to 26 days after conception. Sub-optimal nutrition, one of the factors behind the plague of low-weight babies, means shortages of essential supplies during brain construction resulting in a sub-optimal brain. Hormonal deficiencies, excesses, and imbalances effect both the genes and the environment that ultimately determine identity and orientation–all this before the baby is born.
Creating Emotional Foundations
One of the biggest surprises about life in the womb is the extent of emotional involvement and expression, generally not anticipated in psychology or medicine. Spontaneous and graceful movement that can now be observed from about 10 weeks after conception reveals self-expression and early aspects of self-control, needs and interests. As it is with the establishment of physical settings in utero, the emotional system is also organizing itself in relation to the range and varieties of experiences encountered. A baby surrounded with anger, fear, and anxiety will be adjusting itself to that world and may carry those settings forward unless something changes. Parents are potent factors in shaping the dynamic world of the unborn.
Establishing a Rich Connection with the Prenate
Not long ago we thought it was impossible for prenates to have anNumerous experiments have made it clear that prenates who have the opportunity to hear stories and music repeated to them in utero can demonstrate recognition for this material later in lifey truly personal or significant experiences. We didn’t see that they could have a working mind. Babies are naturally curious and interactive.
These studies have proven what few believed decades ago:
(1) that babies in the womb are alert, aware, and attentive to activities involving voice, touch, and music;
(2) that babies benefit from these activities by forming stronger relationships with their parents and their parents with them, resulting in better attachments and better birthing experiences, and
(3) that these babies tend to show precocious development of speech, fine and gross motor performance, better emotional self- regulation, and better cognitive processing. These are the gifts and rewards of active parenting.
Virtue Baby 