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In pregnancy and in some cases even before, quite a high proportion of mothers believe they have been in contact with their unborn children. Up to a point, they have the support of Professor Peter Hepper of the School of Psychology at the Queen's University of Belfast who has studied prenatal learning extensively. He found that babies whose mothers had regularly watched a television soap opera during pregnancy responded to the musical theme after they were born.

Cathy from Essex, England, told me, "During the last month of my second pregnancy, I noticed how the baby inside me would react to familiar TV signature tunes, kicking furiously and moving excitedly. After the birth of my daughter I was constantly amazed at her reactions, almost from birth and for the next four or five months, to hearing these familiar tunes. She would jerk her head towards the TV as soon as the tune started and stop feeding and turn her whole body toward the source of the sound. It was certainly evidence that babies hear and remember prebirth sounds. I only wish I had introduced her to something a bit more classical!"

Professor Hepper noted: "Recognition is undoubtedly based on hearing, and in all probability requires the storing of highly specific patterns of sound. Babies tested only responded to the Neighbours theme and not any other tune or the Neighbours tune played backward. We have demonstrated learning as early as 24 weeks and other research has suggested that the Neighbours tune soothed fetuses as early as 12 weeks. It is unlikely to be psychic communication between mother and fetus, mainly because it is difficult to see how this would occur. There is undoubtedly, however, some communication between mother and baby. For example, there is evidence that the baby responds to the mother or anyone else pushing on the abdomen and will push back. Exactly what the fetus feels or gets from this is unknown, but this certainly stimulates the mother into action and believing she is interacting with her fetus."

One of his projects has also shown that babies just one hour old already prefer their mother's voice to that of another woman. Another project showed that newborns whose mothers had eaten garlic during the last weeks of pregnancy recognized the same smell on cotton wool.

Cathy's story is explicable in terms of known science. Does this inevitably rule out any possibility of a psychic connection?

Two-Way Communication

Many women talk and sing to their unborn children throughout pregnancy. Some believe that the communication is a two-way affair and will "see" or "hear" the infant in the womb. Felicity, who lives in the Home Counties of England, is now in her fifties with a daughter aged fifteen. Before her daughter was born, Felicity picked up information about the unborn child that even the most sophisticated scans today could not record. She used to talk to her unborn child, especially about the infant's father and older brother. Gradually she realized the baby was returning the communication and was talking to her in her mind.

It was as if I heard the baby's voice and conversations took place. When I was about six months pregnant I asked the baby if she was healthy and she said she was. "Any blemishes?" I asked her. It might seem strange to persist when the infant told me she was healthy but first-time mothers are especially anxious. "Well," the baby told me, "I do have a birthmark on my heel that is shaped like an apple." When the baby was born she was absolutely perfect except for an apple-shaped mark on one of her heels. There were no such marks in the history of our family.

For Diane from Dorset, England, a reassuring message she interpreted as coming from her child helped her through a difficult labor. "I was in the hospital as I started getting contractions eight weeks early. I was put on a drip to stop them. I became very weak and anxious about my baby, as I also had a fibroid growing in my womb. I had developed a chest infection and was treated with large doses of antibiotics. One evening just as I was falling asleep I saw two large brown eyes looking at me calmly and happily telling me that everything was all right. I knew that it was my baby talking to me and I immediately felt relieved and calm.

When my son was born six weeks prematurely, he was in good health except for a long-lasting jaundice and I felt a very strong bond with him though he stayed in an incubator for four weeks.

The link between a mother and her unborn child has been studied by counselor Rosalie Denenfeld who lives in Michigan and is the mother of two children. Her thesis studying the relationship between first-time mothers and their unborn children was produced as part of her master's degree in humanistic and clinical psychology at the Center for Humanistic Studies in 1984. She writes, "A woman who is pregnant for the first time seems to experience her relationship with her unborn child as a catalyst for personal expansion and an increased capacity for love. Because of the uniquely intimate physical unity between the pregnant woman and her unborn child there may exist a peak potential for interaction and communication on physical, emotional and spiritual levels. For some women such interaction facilitates a growing attachment between mother and unborn child, paralleling the physical development of the child.

"As the mother's body expanded, so did her personhood stretch and expand. Such expansion included an awareness of time as both limited and infinite. What feeds and empowers the attachment is the love which develops between mother and unborn child." She discovered that as the attachment grows between mother and unborn child, so the fear of the unknown, that is greatest with the first birth, diminishes.

Rosalie worked with ten first-time mothers using such techniques as focusing to discover deep levels of awareness within the body through intuitive means, keeping a journal, interviewing, art and music. The women were well educated, middle-class and married, and were experiencing a minimal amount of internal, family and social conflicts due to their pregnancies. She comments that their impressively clear verbal descriptions and artistic expressions provided a rich introduction to how pregnant women may experience relating to their unborn child.

On the spiritual level, Rosalie points out that "other than experiencing nine months in her own mother's womb, pregnancy is the only time a woman has the opportunity to experience a dramatic contrast with the separateness to which each of us is subject. Pregnancy is the ultimate intimacy possible between human beings. Pregnancy may be a vehicle meant to awaken love within women and bring more love into the world."

Some of the women Rosalie studied found their bodies picking up their unborn babies' feelings. Gail explained, "Every once in a while, I have a feeling but I don't know where it comes from. And then I realize that I am not the one having the feeling."

The first time Gail experienced it was during a thunderstorm. "Where we live is on top of a hill, very open. Our bedroom has two huge windows and the trees are right outside the window, so it seems almost as if you are outside. And when there are storms, it feels as if they enter the room. One night I woke up feeling really afraid. There was lightning on the inside of the room and intense noise. There was so much noise from the thunder.

"I personally really love storms. I love to hear the thunder and I like to see the lightning. But I woke up and I was really afraid. I got out of bed and I walked around the house. I couldn't figure it out and suddenly I realized I wasn't the one who was afraid. It was the unborn baby. So I talked to the little one. I told the infant inside me that there was a storm and although the noise was disturbing, it was quite safe. The fear went away."

Several of the co-researchers experienced a sense of love coming from within the womb. Rosalie sees the most important implication of her work as helping mothers in disadvantaged circumstances, especially teenage mothers, to become aware of a prenatal bond, not just physically but emotionally and spiritually, so they may be more willing to change a harmful lifestyle that can be threatening to the fetus and also perhaps break out of the cycle of abuse that was reflected in their own lives. If a mother can relate to the fetus as a tiny person with fears and feelings, Rosalie is convinced that she will be less likely to smoke heavily and take drugs or excessive alcohol. What is more, the mother who is bonded to her fetus is more likely to take care of him or her after birth.

One of Rosalie's main conclusions is, "The first-time pregnant woman needs to believe she is capable of communicating with and positively influencing her baby. That belief must be strong enough to replace the need for visual evidence of communication that is available postnatally. After birth the infant's signal responses of body and eye movements will provide her with such visual evidence that she is indeed communicating with her baby. But during pregnancy satisfaction must come from the willing investment in the less tangible yet personally significant beginnings of a bond with her baby."

This article is excerpted with permission from:

"The Mother Link"
by Cassandra Eason.

Published by Ulysses Press/Seastone Books. Book can be purchased (at a discount) by clicking on the cover, or calling 510-601-8301, faxing 510-601-8307; This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

Info/Order book (online at Amazon)

About The Author

Cassandra Eason is a Fellow at the Alister Hardy Research Center for Religious Experience in Oxford. Cassandra has had more than 50 books published in the UK and all over the world, translated into thirteen different languages, including Japanese, Russian, Hebrew ,Portuguese Spanish and Chinese. She is the author of Psychic Families, The Psychic Power of Children, The Handbook of Ancient Wisdom, and Complete Guide to Psychic Development. Cassandra has lectured at Oxford, London and Glasgow Universities on the paranormal and was, for three years, Honorary Research Fellow at the Alister Hardy Research Centre in Oxford and counselled those who reported psychic and religious experiences. An expert on mother and child bonding, she is the mother of five, and lives on the Isle of Wight. Visit her website at www.cassandraeason.co.uk

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