AFTERGLOW of Congress 2003
By Jill Diana Chasse
From the first introductions, first handshakes, first hugs to the parting support and best wishes, our family of perinatal practitioners created an aura of magic and love as we shared and learned at the 2003 Congress in San Francisco.
As a pregnancy counselor and perinatal development consultant, I had always yearned for more information on the womb baby and his or her amazing mind. I also yearned for support. On the East coast, this is quite a lonely field. Many feel this way, and the magic of APPPAH brought us together, hand in hand and heart to heart.
Dr. Thomas Verny founded the Association in 1983 with the noble vision of “the in-depth exploration of the psychological, emotional, and social development of babies and parents from preparation for pregnancy through the postpartum period.” An organization of passionate intensity, APPPAH is paving the way for the minds and souls of the future, as its dedicated members continue to teach the joys and fruits of early parenting and baby development.
The conference was a gift. This year’s conference hosted such renowned minds as Hygeia’s own Jeannie Parvati Baker, Suzanne Arms, creator of “Birthing the Future,” Barbara Harper, the voice and soul of waterbirth, and APPPAH’s past president Dr. David Chamberlain, who is author of The Mind of Your Newborn Baby and lectures all over the world. The learning was immense, the visions extraordinary, the science groundbreaking, and the feeling miraculous!
The APPPAH conference is not only a time to learn, it is a time to heal. With the passing of my daughter last year, I was extra sensitive to the maternal-child bond. The ability to share my experience not only helped me to heal, but presented a blessed opportunity for practitioners to learn from my angel’s gifts as I shared her experiences and activities in and out of the womb.
Though the world is full of magical things, not everyone has been so lucky as to grasp the importance and significance of the miraculous period before birth. As we continue to learn, teach, heal and cry, we bring many different backgrounds together with one common vision- the dedication to inform, support, and educate the public on the precious perinatal stage and the remarkable capacity of a growing baby.
HOMEWARD BOUND
I’m still catching my breath as I rise in the plane over the Pacific. Below I take my last glance of San Francisco as I begin my journey back home to Montreal.
My trip to California was dedicated to a conference I’ve waited my whole life to attend: the international conference of the Association for Prenatal and Perinatal Psychology and Health (APPPAH).
As a child I dreamed of being a mommy. Wombing, nursing and loving a little one seemed to me the most wonderful thing I could imagine. I grew with the yearning to learn more about the minds and development of these little miracles as they matured in their watery world under their mamas’ hearts.
I met doctors, volunteered at the local hospital, read all sorts of books and articles, and still looked for ways to learn more. It turned out to be quite a task. The life of the unborn seemed virtually nonexistent for most of society.
How was it possible that not only the mental and emotional development but also the physical and physiological development of the womb baby was so consistently ignored? All anyone wanted to talk to me about was the infant “after the delivery.”
Well, I’ve come to learn, it wasn’t totally ignored. Some very special people had been studying early brain development, perinatal psychology, and emotional well being of our tiniest miracles for quite some time, but it had yet to reach the mainstream public. Everyday, moms went on with daily life, ignoring the child nestled under their heartbeat. Dads closed doors on crying babies, nurses stuck formula-filled bottles in newborns mouths, and doctors cut open abdomens to pluck babies away from the womb without a second thought.
So where was the truth? Who was going to speak up for the little ones without voices from their mamas’ bellies?
In 1983, Dr. Thomas Verny, a psychiatrist in Toronto, gave the womb babies a voice. By founding the Association, practitioners dedicated to the amazing development of the child before birth had a safe haven to share scientific discoveries, powerful thoughts, and important dreams. And so the special people behind the curtains came together with a voice that grew and grew; it resonated from the wombs to hospitals and emergency rooms across the world.
And these voices have a way of echoing in the public mind. Echoing still in my mind, as my plane begins its decent, are every one of the voices from the conference, sharing psychology, biology, and love, each voice speaking for a baby wanting to learn, wanting to grow, and wanting to love. Every voice stays in my heart, helping me find my own voice to add to the song, for as this plane lands, my journey is not over- it has just begun.
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