Articles

The Miracle of the Gestation Period

When we look at what is happening in the world at the moment, we realise that the bombardment of information that comes our way will have a great impact on the sensitivity of the young child. How best to prepare our children to cope with the upheavals, the extremely quick changes in technology, the constant exposure to new value systems and the challenges to the old ones specially through the media? The digital age demands a new approach in terms of consciousness to and from our children.

Prospective parents ask these questions and are becoming more aware of the importance of the prenatal experience for their future child. Is it possible to instil a sense of security, of expectations, of curiosity, of wonder to the child in utero? The increasing awareness of the long-term impact of prenatal experience on the new life can no longer be ignored. How to improve the contact between the parents and the unborn? Is there a way of affecting the relationships between the future parents so as to reduce the stresses the mother may encounter during pregnancy and birth?

The Metamorphic Technique brings answers to all these questions. It is a simple practice consisting in lightly touching specific parts of the feet, the hands and the head, found to reflect our own period of gestation, the time when all the characteristics with which we live our life were established. Could the stresses, constraints, traumas, thoughts, emotions, feelings experienced by mother be held in the cellular memory of embryo and foetus? If it were so, could their influence be released?

We have found that the power of life within the mother and the unborn can not only change but also transform the patterns arising from these influences, hence the word metamorphosis to which we give the meaning “transmutation into a subtler substance”. The practitioner of the Metamorphic Technique, as a catalyst, creates an environment free of direction through detachment.

A couple has been trying to conceive for many years. They come to receive metamorphic sessions and are shown the practice so they may do it at home on one another. They learn to relax together. A different level of consciousness comes about which, we can assume, arises out of the transformation of some of their characteristics, together with the experience of the dissolution of patterns that prevented a free energy flow. The mother becomes pregnant.

Experience has shown that a mother receiving sessions in early pregnancy will find in herself a greater willingness to adapt to the radical changes in the pursuits of her life. We can only assume that through transformation of some of her characteristics, something in her is aligning or coming into harmony with her inner direction. This will result, for example, in fewer instances of morning sickness, if any at all. But if this happens, the mother will find greater power in herself to cope with the situation. We see the fact of agreeing to receive sessions as the expression of an unspoken agreement to stop putting obstacles in the natural movement of transformation. In nature, transformation happens in an automatic and unconscious way, one good example being the transformation of two incomplete cells, sperm and ovum, into the wonder of a human being.

Following the early period of pregnancy, when the mother’s body undergoes tremendous physiological changes, if she agrees to carry on receiving sessions, there comes at a psychological level a greater feeling of security towards her intuitive abilities to meet various situations and a certainty about what is right for her, questioning in greater depth and clarity the various models of intervention. This inner authority will make her perceive the importance of time and rest management as if the life forces of both foetus and mother were in greater contact and harmony. If the father has also been receiving Metamorphic sessions, there is a greater acceptance of his wife’s needs and above all an awareness of the importance of his own role and the actual enactment of it within this new situation.

It is a joy to observe that when mothers arrive for a Metamorphic session, the jerky movements of the foetus if there were any will very quickly diminish and stop altogether. During the session, there seems to be a response on the part of the foetus who starts stretching, taking up a greater space without causing pain to the mother. The mother’s womb moves like waves under the influences of the foetus’ seeming pleasure at experiencing the space and the boundaries around it.

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The gestation period is the time when all the characteristics that will form us from the physical and the consciousness levels are established, as well as all the influences we need to fulfil our destiny. We enact these experiences and influences in our life at different times. These formations (so-called negative or positive) are not absolute and their energy can be loosened, being used by our life force to make us become what we truly are and realise the potential that we are unto the Universe.

The seed needs an environment, the earth, to transform into a plant. Through working with detachment on the spinal reflex points that also reflect the patterns established during the gestation, the Metamorphic practitioner provides a conscious context within which the life forces of both mother and child can work directly on inherited traits that could result in serious difficulties in later life, perhaps transforming them. Should problems arise, the mother feels confident enough to trust her own life force and to refuse or welcome in consciousness external interventions, whether medical or others. The wisdom of the body is therefore allowed to act in a way that is appropriate.

Fathers at times will insist that mothers receive Metamorphic sessions, having realised that there are tremendous benefits incurred. Of course, this cuts down on medical bills. Often, gynaecologists or doctors will feel the mothers' determination to carry on without medical intervention and will be in awe at what is happening.

During the last months of gestation, there may come fears at what the future holds in store, unquietness and excitement but underlying these feelings, there is a sense of having the power to cope. Also the feeling of what it is like to be a mother becomes stronger, together with the joy of embracing this new role. At times mothers feel bereft of contact with the foetus. On receiving sessions they realise the extraordinariness of the phenomenon taking place in their womb and are able to establish a bonding that up till now they had no idea could exist.

When the forces of nature begin to assert themselves more strongly at the onset of the birthing, we find in the mother a willingness to accompany in consciousness the workings of these forces within her body. There comes a very strong feeling that the life force of mother and child knows to do the right thing at the right moment and midwives within that atmosphere seem to be instructed to act clearly, precisely and with economy of intervention. The innate intelligence leads the way.

Mothers on borderline pathology, in receiving sessions, feel keenly that deep changes can take place. Some will refuse further sessions, afraid of the possible void that the disappearance of the patterns would create, unaware of the beauty and the glory of the new patterns that could fill that void. Others, with courage, will agree to pursue receiving sessions and quickly realise that the changes at bodily, mental and emotional levels resulting from a deep movement of transformation are the dawning of a completely new venture in their way of being.

We have notice, generally speaking, that in people receiving sessions there comes a knowingness and a spontaneous wisdom that will be present from now onward. We observe that this is heightened in pregnant women and beyond the birthing, stemming from the actual behaviour and sharings of the mothers. Of course this may relate to the fact that the birth of a baby is something so essential that everyone involved feels a touch of the beyond when it happens.

There is in each of us a yearning to change or to experience at deeper levels the various facets of existence. Would-be mothers, at least some of them, realise that pregnancy gives them a potential way to shift out of the old patterns that had become stale and useless into a completely new way of living their life. The demand for more room in the womb on the part of the growing foetus seems to trigger in some mothers an appetite for a new direction in life. As they seize the opportunity, a radiance and a quiet certainty can be felt by others.

It is very satisfying for the father to be able to contribute to the well-being of both baby and mother by giving them sessions. A bonding is quickly established between the three people particularly and also with other members of the family, for example with the siblings vying with each other to give sessions.

We have observed that babies whose mothers have received sessions in pregnancy are very present to their surroundings and aware of the stimulation arising from them, having a clear gaze and responding almost immediately to the presence or to the voice of the midwife who has given the sessions. They are also much more in contact with their instinctual urges and in periods of stress will calm down very quickly as the mother or the practitioner starts touching the feet, the hands or the head very lightly within the Metamorphic mode.

The Metamorphic Technique could enable midwives to open future parents to the wonder that is happening in the growing of a baby and of being a human being. On the whole, we find that the "foot children" as some tend to call them are better able to cope with the demands of life, doing so in a self-assured way. People report how well-rounded these children are. As young adults they know their mind and are not easily swayed by the pressures of their peers, preferring to be alone instead of compromising their integrity. Could we say that they retain this feeling of integrity from their prenatal experience?

© Gaston Saint-Pierre and Martina Reineke (midwife), October 2001