Taking the understanding of birth psychology and infant psychology one step earlier, this book addresses the psychology of the nine months of life prior to birth. With advances in technology, especially 3D and 4D sonography, it is now possible to observe prenatal behavior in utero. This book addresses the theory, underlying physiological mechanisms, and psychology of the human person prior to birth.

During the course of about 100 years, Prenatal Psychology has developed from an initially intuitive insight within the scope of psychoanalysis into a broad interdisciplinary field of science. Otto Rank began his study of the possible effect of birth experiences in 1904, finally publishing his book the Trauma of Birth in 1923. With these two dates marking Rank's contribution, it can be said that Prenatal & Perinatal Psychology is approximately 100 years of age. Since then, due to the laborious, dedicated work of Pioneers in the field, what was once a hidden mystery now is common knowledge. Prenatal Life Matters! Today, there is more and more evidence on how our early beginnings from pre-conception to early after birth can affect our Health, our Relationships and our Quality of Life. In this book, you will find a complete guide as to what we now know in the field of Prenatal Psychology and you can get vital keys to understanding how our primal experience shapes who we become.

Children are the foundation of the United States, and supporting them is a key component of building a successful future. However, millions of children face health inequities that compromise their development, well-being, and long-term outcomes, despite substantial scientific evidence about how those adversities contribute to poor health. Advancements in neurobiological and socio-behavioral science show that critical biological systems develop in the prenatal through early childhood periods, and neurobiological development is extremely responsive to environmental influences during these stages. Consequently, social, economic, cultural, and environmental factors significantly affect a child's health ecosystem and ability to thrive throughout adulthood. Vibrant and Healthy Kids: Aligning Science, Practice, and Policy to Advance Health Equity builds upon and updates research from Communities in Action: Pathways to Health Equity (2017) and From Neurons to Neighborhoods: The Science of Early Childhood Development (2000). This report provides a brief overview of stressors that affect childhood development and health, a framework for applying current brain and development science to the real world, a roadmap for implementing tailored interventions, and recommendations about improving systems to better align with our understanding of the significant impact of health equity.

This book is designed to help students organize their thinking about psychology at a conceptual level. The focus on behaviour and empiricism has produced a text that is better organized, has fewer chapters, and is somewhat shorter than many of the leading books. The beginning of each section includes learning objectives; throughout the body of each section are key terms in bold followed by their definitions in italics; key takeaways, and exercises and critical thinking activities end each section.

In this first compendium in the growing literature of behavioral teratology, readers will discover an easy-to-access, concise presentation that covers a huge range of subjects. The book synthesizes important findings that help explain why prenatal events may result in abnormal behavior and learning disabilities later in life. It goes further to examine the role of prenatal perturbations in conditions as varied as dyslexia, schizophrenia, fetal alcohol syndrome, and autism.

The book examines the major issues in perinatal clinical psychology with the presence of theoretical information and operational indications, through a biopsychosocial approach. The multiplicity of scientific information reported makes this book both a comprehensive overview on the major perinatal mental health disorders and illnesses, and a clinical guide. It covers perinatal clinical psychology through a journey of 15 chapters, putting the arguments on a solid theoretical basis and reporting multiple operational indications of great utility for daily clinical practice. It has well documented new evidence bases in the field of clinical psychology that have underpinned the conspicuous current global and national developments in perinatal mental health. As such, it is an excellent resource for researchers, policy makers, and practitioners – in fact, anyone and everyone who wishes to understand and rediscover, in a single opera, the current scientific and application scenario related to psychological health during pregnancy and after childbirth.

Forewords by Jaap van der Wal and Marcy Axness Spirit into Form invites you to explore with mindful, embodied awareness your earliest experiences in this life with curiosity, compassion and creativity. It guides you through developmental milestones, starting with pre-conception, through conception, coming into physical form as an embryo, negotiating the birth canal and hopefully being welcomed at birth. Each stage offers details of embryological development in simple, accessible terms with hand-drawn illustrations, elaborating potential challenges and lifelong effects of having met them. More than a traditional book on embryology, Spirit into Form includes psychological and spiritual aspects and the original embryological potential of this early time.This book is for anyone who wonders about the origins of human life and bodies, as well as personality, relationship and behavioral tendencies. Therapists and practitioners of many types, particularly those with somatic/body-centered or psychological approaches, bodyworkers, movement practitioners, birth practitioners, and also new parents and parents-to-be, can benefit from the gentle, mindful guidance in exploring your earliest beginnings, roots of many issues and strengths, and how to access potential that may have become occluded by challenges and conditions life presents. Cherionna Menzam-Sills's book, Spirit into Form, is based on her long experience as a craniosacral therapist and somatic prenatal and birth therapist. Cherionna takes you on a tour of important developmental stages during gestation. But in addition to that she has much to say about the larger fields of Love, Spirit, and Soul and how they are connected to the body. The scope of the material is wide, broad and encompassing. Cheronna's message is that when we come to understand our early experiences and how they establish in us lifelong patterns, habits, addictions and tendencies, we can begin to integrate, let go, and make new choices. Her book is a subtle distillation of wisdom, stylistic grace, and excellent advice for pregnant or soon-to-be pregnant persons. Highly recommended. -- Thomas R. Verny MD, DHL (Hon), DPsych, FRCPC, FAPAAssociate Editor, Journal of Pre and Peri-natal Psychology and Health (JOPPPAH), Past President APPPAH, Author of The Secret Life of the Unborn Child with John Kelly and Pre-Parenting with Pamela Weintraub. This is an absolutely necessary contemporary creation story that is integrative rather than reductionistic. Cherionna writes a narrative that helps us to enter the mystery of conception, birth and death. It is a narrative that points to a solution found in front of us and in us - our body. Marie-Louise Von Franz, a preeminent Jungian analyst says in her book Creation Myths, that any creation story that unfolds in stages is the "best" creation story. Cherionna unfolds our collective story, which is my story, chapter by chapter with her expert guidance. It is an unfoldment of our embryo as humanity and as embodiment. This is a book that inspires self-compassion, love and altruism as the necessary remedy for healing as a body and a body politic in the context of our planet now. She shows us the steps to recover and make meaning of our embryo - our lived perpetual embryo. Contained herein is the most genuine and authentic nature of her embodied experience. Simultaneously, it is a fountain of authoritative knowledge referencing relevant science superseding all such attempts that have come before yet holding perfectly all its predecessor's. This beautiful and spellbinding book must be required reading to become a full human being inherently complete from a single celled conceptus through the moment of death. -- Michael J. Shea, PhDFounder of SheaHeart.com, A Center for the Study of the Human Heart and Author of Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy, Volumes 1-5.