Giving Birth Stress

Having a baby is probably the greatest athletic experience a woman is likely to experience, but it is an even more profound emotional experience for her, and to a lesser degree for the father.  Pre-natal preparation therefore should not merely be preoccupied wit the physical aspects but also with the parents' feelings. 

The very real advantage of a hospital setting is bought at a price.  In the zeal for sterility there may be emotional sterility also, and hospitals which use valuable advanced medical techniques my lose sight of the feelings of the mother.  There is some evidence that active interference in normal labor detracts from the woman's enjoyment of her baby immediately after birth and with subsequent difficulties in 'bonding'.

Child Birth Strain

The kind of experience a woman has in labor can affect her feelings towards her baby and perhaps towards
the father also. A frightened, ignorant, tense mother, with an unhappy lonely experience of labor, or actively managed so that she feels she has no responsibility herself and with feelings of guilt at having lost her control and dignity, may openly reject her baby and resent the father.

Other mothers may feel badly about having these feelings and hide them, pretending a love they do not feel, and the rejection is passed on to the baby in the way she handles him. A baby reacts quickly to his or her mother's feelings: it appears to be the quality of handling and touch that the baby recognizes, and if she is jerky, tense, hostile, he is likely to be irritable and restless.

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