Prenatal and Birth Therapy

Prenatal and Birth Therapy can support you to:

• Access the deepest source of life energy within you
• Identify and free yourself from life long patterns that no longer serve you
• Gently release the hold of preverbal trauma
• Be more present with yourself and others in your life
• Prepare yourself to be the best parent you can possibly be
• Prepare your body-mind for the miracle of birth
• Welcome and bond with your new baby with greater sensitivity and awareness

If you have a new baby, Prenatal and Birth Therapy can help your baby to:

• Feel safe, welcomed and loved
• Sleep and nurse more easily
• Express his or her birth story and feel understood
• Gently release prenatal and birth trauma
• Adjust to life outside the womb more readily
• Enjoy life more as he or she grows up

Prenatal and Birth Imprints

As a new baby, you were a remarkably sensitive, aware being.

Ideally, you were welcomed into the world by loving parents who celebrated your arrival. In reality, your birth was probably less than ideal.

Many common situations may have left their mark on you.

Prenatal and birth trauma are likely to affect you if:

• Your conception was unplanned or unwanted
• Your mother experienced ongoing stress while pregnant with you
• Your mother took or was exposed to tobacco, alcohol, other drugs or environmental toxicity during pregnancy
• You lost a twin before, during, or soon after birth
• Your parents were challenged by marital difficulties or other stresses such as illness, loss of a loved one, war, or natural catastrophe
• Your parents or mother lost a baby before you were conceived due to miscarriage, still birth, illness, abortion, or adoption
• Your birth included medical interventions such as drugs to reduce pain or accelerate labor, forceps, vacuum extraction, C-section
• Your birth had complications such as premature labor or breech presentation
• You were separated from your mother after birth

If you find yourself struggling with inexplicable emotional issues, chronic health problems, or stubborn habits, you may be experiencing the effects of early prenatal or birth experience.

These early influences are called "imprints."

Original Blueprints: Come Back to Health

Fortunately, you also have within you the original "blueprints" which helped you form as miraculously as you did and continue to be a source of health throughout your life. These blueprints may be covered over by early imprints, but together we can find them.

In Prenatal and Birth Therapy I support you to:

• Recognize patterns established very early in your life
• Differentiate between then and now
• Access the support and resources available to you now
• Slow down so you can be more aware and make new choices

If you are a new parent I will help you to:

• Slow down so you can be more in sync with your baby
• Recognize when your baby is trying to tell you about his or her birth
• Support your child in being comforted by you in the present rather than staying stuck in the fear, anger, shock or other feelings of the past
• Identify and process your own reactions and feelings about the birth
• Recognize and release your own feelings of guilt as you develop compassion for yourself
• Receive the support you need to be a parent in the 21st century

What are Prenatal and Birth Therapy sessions like?

Prenatal and Birth Therapy sessions may include talking, body awareness and movement, and creative process. They are usually based on Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy and may be similar to BMMI sessions, but our underlying focus and intentions relate to prenatal and birth themes.

If the session is for your child, he or she may play, nurse, or sleep as usual during the session. I will assist you in perceiving and being with your child in supportive ways as we follow your child's lead.

Prenatal and Birth Therapy has been strongly influenced by my 4 years of training with and assisting Ray Castellino at BEBA, his family clinic in Santa Barbara. For more information click here. I also studied for six years with Ray's teacher, William Emerson, and have a Ph.D. in Pre- and Perinatal Psychology.

"This work is totally unique, and allowed me to be with Julian without my story getting in the way. It gave me a real sense of safety and connection back to spirit.

For Julian, he gets to speak. In this world we don't speak baby language, but in these sessions we give him a voice, and we slow down to his level. I just see in Julian's eyes during and after the sessions this 'Ah, you guys get it.' He felt so good!

I learn by watching you settling in and listening how much he has to say and how clearly he expresses it."

- Maya Kokatay, Doula and mom to Julian (3 months old at the time of our first session)