The question is food for thought, especially considering the many scientific studies conducted by the Pre and Perinatal Psychology Institute (See www.birthpsychology.com for more). These studies, many of them published in the highly regarded Lancet Magazine, demonstrate how a newborn’s first impression of the world will directly affect its ability to love.

From the hormonal point of view, the birth itself and the hour following birth appear to be a series of interactions between two individuals: the mother and her baby. During the birth process, both mother and baby reach very specific hormonal balances at the same time, and all these hormones have a particular role to play during the hour following birth, before they are eliminated. Therefore, if, just after the birth, the interaction between mother and baby is disturbed, the mother will not release the desirable level of hormones.

So, what triggers the appropriate release of hormones during labor? Consider this: we humans share an incredible machine with other mammals – the primal brain, or limbic system. Leave it alone during labor and its wisdom will perform the miracle of creation right before your eyes. Interfere, or “manage labor,” and we are heading for a long, intervention-filled process. This is not to say that interventions are sometimes necessary and do save lives; there is no doubt about that. However, 99% of the time, if a woman is allowed to labor undisturbed in a dark, quiet environment, she will tap into her own wisdom and power and deliver her child as nature intended her to do.

How can we provide that kind of environment? Simply, anything that puts the neocortex (our civilized brain) to the side will do. Watch a cat or a dog giving birth and you will see: they choose a quiet, isolated place to make sure they will be undisturbed; they follow their instincts. Giving birth is typically a situation in which a woman has an absolute need to drop her mask. When she is provided with a quiet environment, undisturbed by conversations (which bring her right back into the neocortex), and provided stimulus that allow her primitive brain to relax into the process, for example smells (aromatherapy), touch (warm water and massage) and relaxation (a few whispered encouragements), she taps into her own wisdom and her own power, and comes out transformed by the process of birth. She is not only giving birth to a baby – she is giving birth to herself as well.

Primal Health Research, established by Dr. Michel Odent, has compiled a data bank with hundreds of reference studies published in authoritative scientific and medical journals (www.birthworks.org/primalhealth). This data bank sheds some light on self-destructive behaviors and the epidemic in juvenile violent criminality, which can be regarded as a form of impaired capacity to love others.

One of the studies, conducted by Adrian Raine and his team from the University of California, Los Angeles, found that the main risk factor for criminal violence at age 18 was the association of birth complications together with early separation by the mother.

Dr. Bertil Jacobson, from Sweden, studied how people commit suicide, and found that suicides involving asphyxiation were closely related to asphyxiation at birth, while suicides by violent mechanical means were associated with mechanical birth traumas. His studies on drug addiction conclude that if a mother had been given certain pain killers during labor, her child was statistically at increased risk of becoming drug-addicted in adolescence. Three doses of opiates or barbiturates given to the mother at birth were associated with a five-fold increase in the risk of the child becoming addicted.