Taikyo, A Japanese Prenatal Education Program
Created by Yoshiharu Morimoto, M.D.
Giselle E. Whitwell, MT-BC, CCE, DOULA
Dr. Yoshiharu Morimoto is a pioneer in the field of pre-birth education who established in 1989 a Pre-Birth Education Center in Osaka, Japan. Sixteen years later, he reports that 7,000 fetuses have been exposed to the techniques that he has created for pregnant mothers and their partners. I was privileged to learn about this program in a three-day workshop offered by Dr. Morimoto in Los Angeles in March 2005. To date, he has not written about his program. What follows is a brief introduction to six aspects of this program, one of which is music.
In addition to his dedication to prenatal education, Dr. Morimoto is CEO and Chairman of the IVF NAMBA Clinic, where he annually supervises 4,000 cases of in-vitro fertilization. He teaches at the Kansai Medical University and travels extensively to present his work. He can be reached with email at york@ivfnamba.com
Introduction
Dr. Morimoto became interested in issues of both birth and death through his patients and their reports. An older patient dying of ovarian cancer reported on an out of body experience in which she saw a wonderful garden. In a near-death experience she encountered a Buddha and died shortly thereafter. Dr. Morimoto has researched such profound matters in Tibetan writings and in the Hindu Sutras. Members of these cultures believe that spirit is old, dwells in the sky and enters into mothers when they are sexually engaged with their partners--all part of a long journey of incarnation. According to the Sutras, death is not always sad and birth is not always happy. He believes that one needs to have an open mind when facing these issues. Yet the mystery of where we go after death or what happens before birth has continued to intrigue him. Although he concedes we have no means of knowing from where our baby's soul comes, in his fertility clinic he has arranged for an incubator in which music is played from the earliest stages of life when sperm and egg meet.
In Dr. Morimoto’s experience, children typically remember their birth stories until the age of six years when memory of the event begins to fade. He recommends to parents that when the children are in the water taking a bath or are near water sounds they casually ask them about their experience at birth. He suggestions questions like these: What was your experience like in the womb? What did you do? How did you come out of your mother’s womb? To the last question one child described turning once around inside, setting his head, rushing into the pelvis, and a final head turn at the end.
The doctor has heard many testimonies of memories from children remembering scenes and situations in utero, some of which represent astute psychic perceptions that we would probably label as clairvoyance, telepathy, or remote viewing. For example, a pregnant woman visiting Tokyo was powerfully impressed by the cityscape of tall buildings she saw there. Later when her child was four, the child described this scenery in great detail as if she had been there and seen it herself.
Babies have remembered after birth things they had seen and heard while inside, although their vision should have not been possible from inside and should have been only partially developed at the time. One child remembered the deaths of a brother and a sister prior to his coming into the family--a story that reminded Dr. Morimoto of a fairy tale, The Blue Bird, by Belgian poet and playwright Maurice Maeterlinck. In this work, the author describes how the soul of a baby, waits in the hall of the Blue Palace (Paradise) to be born, and comes down when called by the mother. Another baby, still in the womb, every day would alert her mom five minutes before her dad would arrive home from work--a perceptive ability the doctor refers to as “pre-vision.”
Many reports reveal the communication of animals (dogs, cats, birds) with the baby in utero. After receiving fertility treatments, one mother’s dog "Momo" began sleeping on mother’s stomach. One day the mother felt the movement of the baby when the dog was on her. From that time on the dog began communicating directly with the baby by tapping the belly--and the baby responded. After birth, the dog displayed much love for the baby and would comfort him, often communicating and attending to him first before alerting the mother.
Through the years, Dr.Morimoto has collected many drawings from young children depicting their experience in the womb. He finds the drawings of five year old children quite astonishing. In one of them we see the image of a placenta. In another the umbilical cord is shown with its three interior vessels. These spontaneous sketches of life before birth are anatomically accurate.
Dr. Morimoto ponders these findings and questions how and why the fetus can see outside the womb through the amniotic fluid and the thick wall of the uterus. One way he explains it is that mother and baby are like two synchronized computers. He finds support for this in the work of Stanislav Grof and concepts of the collective unconscious by Carl Jung. He believes mother and baby communicate with each other in the deep layers of their unconscious minds.
Elements of the Osaka Pre-Birth Education Program
Group classes are held for mothers (and fathers) during their second and third trimester of pregnancy. Initially, there are two concentrated meetings of four hours each, where the parents learn the basic techniques they will continue to practice by themselves during the remainder of the pregnancy. The first purpose is to bond with the baby in the womb. Through this process the baby is then connected to the larger world using mother as the gateway resonating with other relatives, neighbors, the community at large, nature, the earth, the cosmos--everything alive. The sixteen year old program consists of six areas of development and activities.
1. Autogenic training
This is a special approach to relaxation. A psychologist at the Center leads pregnant women who are reclining, sometimes sitting, in a darkened room for deeper relaxation purposes. The technique, created by Johannes Schultz, a German doctor in 1932, requires time and practice initially but is said to offer greater benefits than simple muscle relaxation. The word autogenic derives from two Greek words, autos (self) and genous, (generated), or “self-generated.” The technique focuses on certain phrases and images conditioning the body for a relaxed response, for example: "feel your arms growing heavier and warmer ... your breathing is calm and smooth." The result is a deep state of both physical relaxation and mental peace and should be led by someone trained in the method. Some compare it to self-hypnosis. Mothers are taught to begin talking to their babies in the womb. Later during labor and delivery mothers suggest to their baby to make themselves round and relaxed for an easier passage through the vaginal canal. Thus, autogenic training contributes to an easier birth experience.
2. Imagery Work: Sand Play and Paper Mache
The object of imagery exercises is to stimulate the right brain, which is important for the birth process. Sand play is a therapy technique used particularly with children and special education students to assist them with stress and/or trauma. However, in this case, mothers are asked to create a scene in which they make a home for their baby. As they do this there is an opportunity to return to their own infant years and access feelings of that time period, remembering what it feels to be childlike. This exercise encourages the emergence of a natural empathy that mothers can use to nurture their own babies.
In paper mache mothers fashion the face of their expected baby. Some will have seen an ultrasound photograph of their child, most will not, but what is remarkable is that about 25% of the time the sculpted face will resemble the baby after birth--a fact that surprises many mothers
3. The Kick Game
The idea to include this game in the Osaka program was stimulated by a visit to obstetrician Rene Van de Carr in Hayward, California. Rene is famous around the world for his prenatal curriculum called the “Prenatal University.” Dr. Morimoto was fascinated when he observed the Kick Game between mothers and babies in the womb. He has adapted this game somewhat for his program in Japan. This technique includes the following steps:
(1) When the baby spontaneously kicks the mother's abdomen, she taps gently in that same place and says "kick baby, kick!" This eventually establishes a conditioned reflex in the baby to adult touch and voice, making possible a “game.” Mothers are encouraged to persist in this process until it is learned. Dr. Morimoto notes that babies in the womb sometimes “request” this game if the mother forgets or skips a day. He also reports that parents and babies have an 80% success rate is achieved this game with regular practice.
(2) The next step is to tap in the opposite direction. Also, after the baby kicks and responds on one side, the mother can tap on the opposite side, making the game more exciting. He estimates a 60% success rate on this level.
(3) Introducing the concept of number. The mother taps any number of times and waits for the baby to respond with the same number of kicks. One mother reported that her baby was very fond of the number ten! The doctor believes that babies are very smart and some develop the concept of number doing this. A 30% success rate is found at this level of difficulty. Dr. Morimoto cautions mothers not to tap too hard when engaged in this game!
4. Conversation Skills (Taidan)
The Japanese word "taidan" means to convey the necessary skills to communicate with the fetus. It is derived from tai – fetus and dan – communication, meeting; a word created by Dr. Morimoto for the purpose of his work. In order to achieve his aim, Dr. Morimoto has placed Pregaphones in the labor and delivery rooms so that parents have access to these at any time. Pregaphones were created in the USA by Ms. Hodson, president of the company. They are small megaphones with the wide end placed on the mother's womb and the narrow mouthpiece end for the mother to speak to her baby. Their purpose is to direct the sound to the baby. According to Dr. Morimoto four principles should be followed in addressing the baby:
(1) Speak a little louder than normal
(2) Pronounce very clearly
(3) Speak slowly
(4) Speak from the heart!
Additional skills of communication are gained by exercises involving the senses of looking, listening, tasting, touching and smelling. Mothers are encouraged to experience the senses fully while working with flowers at the Center or in daily living activities such as cooking, and then to share these feelings with their babies in the womb as if preparing them for what awaits them after birth. Taikyo is practiced in the classroom and whenever possible at home throughout the day whenever possible.
5. Music
Live music is played to class participants immediately following the autogenic practice while they are still resting in a darkened room. Frequently, this music will be in the form of a piano and violin duet and drawing upon a variety of styles from Mozart to modern music. Dr. Morimoto has noticed that some babies can recognize music after only one hearing in the womb--just one reason why he thinks fetuses are operating on a genius level.
Music appropriate for Taikyo should have certain energetic and technical qualities which Dr. Morimoto determines by spectral analysis. This sound should contain the 1/f fluctuations of sound in the middle spectrum that show the greatest stability, compared with the 1/f2 fluctuations which are monotonous and boring, and the 1/f0 fluctuations that are chaotic and irregular. Music and sounds in the 1/f range are reported to have healing power, repair damaged tissue, and provide energy for creativity without boring people or making them tense. Morimoto’s spectral research with streams and waves of water show they have fluctuations similar to the music of Mozart and the Plum Flower passage in Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker ballet.
6. Sharing
Finally, mothers are invited to come together after the birth to share their experiences. More frequently in the last ten years, mothers are accompanied by their partners who join in the various exercises. This is a voluntary choice on their part.
Conclusions
Although no control groups have been used in the Morimoto program, making it impossible to make empirical comparisons with other programs, interviews and reports from a small group of one year olds and four year olds exposed to the program in utero are very positive. Over 95% of mothers felt that the program was “effective” in meeting their expectations. Almost 80% felt that their children were “easy to care for” because of their good-natured dispositions. Similarly, almost 80% reported their children do not cry at night and are generally loved and appreciated by others.
About 40% of the mothers studied reported an easy delivery, but most mothers felt positive attachment to their babies after delivery. Most mothers were pleased with the rapid growth and development of their children and rated the four year olds high on “curiosity.” They also felt their children were very friendly and not afraid of strangers. An unspecified test indicated that the children showed “high” ability and “sociability.”
Reflecting on his overall impression of the effect of the program on mothers and babies during the last 16 years, Dr. Morimoto feels sure that early bonding is the foundation for the child’s personality and future life. He has constructed a chart with concentric circles illustrating the centrality of bonding to the favorable development in life. If the baby can first bond with mother, he or she will progress to bonding with relatives, neighbors, animals and plants, and to the larger cosmos. On the other hand, if someone fails to form a bond with their mother, it could be difficult to establish a bond with others and society at large.
A failure at the beginning might be a prelude to future unhappiness and violence to self and to others. Therefore, prenatal education, in nurturing our social nature could save the financial resources that are being consumed by social ills today.
Doctor Morimoto estimates that he has educated around 7,000 fetuses through his program and he sees these babies as alert, active, and innocent, possessing a “radiance” and curiosity, a stable mind, and attractive personality. He believes that these babies are gentle and prepared to understand the feelings of others, able to love and be loved, and approach life with bright eyes and bright minds. His hope is that the program he has designed informs babies about the wonderful and attractive world they come to live in. He is driven by an ecological vision that declares “We need to maintain the earth and nature in a non-polluted and beautiful state in order to pass it along to our offspring with full confidence.”
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