The Embodied Relationship: The Protective Function of Nurturing Communication, Music, and Emotions During Prenatal Life

Editor’s Note: This post is a part of the forthcoming Special Issue of Kindred Magazine celebrating the Mother of Medicine on Mother’s Day 2025. Kindred welcomes Stephanie Mines, PhD, as guest editor for this issue. Subscribe now to receive this issue, and receive invitations to forthcoming related events here.

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These practices, which have been cultivated by our indigenous ancestors for millennia, release tensions and regulate emotions, and a range of psychophysiological benefits are transmitted to the unborn baby. These are not just activities; they are gateways of perception and tools for expressing the full potential of being.

ABSTRACT

 Studies have been focused on the critical role of attuned non-verbal, bodily-based, bidirectional interactions between caregiver and infant in early socio-emotional development. Little is known about the influence of this relational engagement during life before birth, which is what this paper intends to shift. Furthermore, while the epigenetic effects of trauma and mental health disorders have been widely studied, those of maternal nurturing emotions and communications have been out of scientific exploration.

 Maternal experiences induced by exposure to favourite music listening, connection with Nature, mindfulness practice, dialogic communication with the baby through interactive touch and voice, singing, poem, rhyme or lullaby recital and other forms of creative expressions, have the function not only to protect the mother and unborn baby against the effects of harmful stress hormones, but also epigenetic effects on the child’s personality and prosocial virtues. By inducing sensorimotor responses and forming new neural circuits in the developing unborn baby, these experiences provide the neurobiological substrate, thus are embodied, and form earliest memories that will influence postnatal subsequent experiences. By sharing observations of my unborn daughter’s behaviour, such as her movements in response to the musical piece as well as to my emotional response to it, her later drawings, her musical, artistic and writing talents, and kind and caring nature, I provide interesting insights of the continuum from prenatal to postnatal life.

 This paper discusses the prenatal attuned embodied communication and earliest memories as the foundations of overall future development and health at every layer of human existence, thus of individual, society and ecological wellbeing, as they allow for the development of the child’s creativity, empathy, and compassion towards others and the natural environment.  A new concept of creative health is introduced. Understanding how maternal experiences during pregnancy and her feeling of the emergence of life as intrinsically associated with an experience of Art and Beauty shape personality predispositions (through epigenetic mechanisms), can shed light on the mechanisms through which these prenatal experiences promote life-long physical and mental health. A mother’s conscious experience, observations and narration of her baby’s presence and behaviour in the womb can make a valuable contribution to scientific advances in epigenetics and interpersonal neuroscience of early human development. Women have the capacity to deeply understand the very origins and sacredness of life through their lived experiences, observations of and responsiveness to another human being’s development withing their body. This comprehension is the very promoter of health, wellbeing, and resilience in both baby and mother.

 This highlights the need to support women’s health and a healthy mother-baby somatic relationship through the promotion of nurturing practices and their protective psychobiological function. The role of the father and the community is important in facilitating this relationship through his love, deep understanding and support. The documented high levels of mental distress in women during pregnancy and in the postnatal period pose a high risk to the cultivation of this vital embodied connection and consequently to a future where children, society and nature can thrive together. This paper addresses a growing interest in the fields of Arts, Nature and Health, and Collective Wellbeing for an interconnected world, and thus in non-clinical approaches to health and wellbeing, with a focus on motherhood leadership and the prenatal and perinatal period as a window of opportunities. The ultimate aim is to foster the creation of a new generation who know how to create their own health and consequently a womb environment in which their offspring can thrive; but also of a new generation of socially and ecologically engaged researchers and practitioners able to meet the needs of a changing health and social care system, where personalized care, health equity, and mother-baby experiences are mainstreamed into public health.

THE EMBODIED CONNECTION. WE ARE NOT MEANT TO BECOME DISCONNECTED

  African indigenous culture of social bonds reveals the deepest never-changing roots of our humanness – that universal connectedness and community unison, which is the driving force of a fulfilling birth, pregnancy and parenting, thus of human wellbeing. The complex social and healthcare systems, in particular maternity and infant healthcare, we have created in our Western world are increasingly distancing us from our very human nature. The natural resonances and rhythms characterizing African indigenous cultures appears as a ‘blueprint’ that has guided humanity for millennia (Sansone, 2021). They use sonic rhythms and dances to enter state of consciousness to get insight, wisdom and healing. It is this awareness of rhythms, which speaks through their bodies as well as social life, this seeing the world through a prism of interrelationships, that supports mothers and every member of the community in connecting and attuning with their babies far before birth.

 The essence of trauma and consequent mental suffering is disconnection from oneself, from one’s body and emotions and from other people (van der Kolk, 2014). Trauma is the shutdown of the bodily sensations and emotions that caused pain when the traumatic event occurred. But our true nature is to be connected. It manifests from the very beginning of life: conception. There would be no human being without connection. The human species, like any species, could not have evolved without being grounded in a relational body. We would not have evolved if mothers had not felt safely connected with other members of the community to share childcare (Hrdy, 2011). Therefore, we are not meant to become disconnected, being human connection a biological necessity (Porges, 2011).

 The autonomic nervous system (in particular the cardiac vagal tone and social engagement system) is regulated by nurturing relationships in early life and influences babies’ development well into adulthood. It shapes social, affective and cognitive behaviours, body language, gestures, motor activity, capacity for emotion self-regulation, empathy, social relationships and resilience (Porges et al., 1994; Porges, 2011, Calkins, 1997). These implicit systems form early body memories, including prenatal. The vagus nerve is the tenth cranial nerve and the primary nerve of the parasympathetic nervous system, which is implicated in the regulation of multiple biological systems. When it functions poorly, a variety of detrimental health outcomes can take place (digestion problems such as irritable bowel), neuronal communication, such as seizures, and mental health, such as depression as well as inflammation, a backdrop for many diseases (Groves & Brown, 2005), especially in our modern world. When functioning well, the vagus nerve improves physiological self-regulation (e.g. of glucose), attention, and behaviour regulation as well as interpersonal interactions (Kok & Frederickson, 2010; Porges et al., 1994). Therefore, the vagus nerve also influences emotion and emotion regulation (Porter et al, 2022). Vagal tone has also been correlated with compassion and openheartedness toward others from different backgrounds (Keltner, 2009). Moral behaviour and peaceful life reside in the way children are raised, in responsive parenting, creative interactions, in intersubjective environment, including the natural, leading to physiological and emotional self-regulation and empathy (Narvaez, 2014).

 Collective connection support vagus nerve functioning and the mother-baby engagement system, inducing oxytocin release. We know that oxytocin is responsible for our feeling of love, social connection, trust and generosity; the social scientists call it the “molecule of social cohesion”, which means that when this hormone is running high in individuals and society, society comes together and harmonise, rather than fragmenting and falling apart (Kok & Fredrickson, 2010). Mothers have the power to create an oxytocin-induced heaven of imagination during pregnancy, in which their unborn baby can thrive.  Maternal oxytocin plays a central role in the prenatal and postnatal period and influences mother-baby bonding.

Epigenetics demonstrated that trauma changes DNA through generations, unless the trauma is healed or moved beyond. These changes can be transmitted from the mother to the unborn and infant and across generations (Yehuda et al., 2016). Therefore, unborn babies can experience the mother’s anxiety, low mood, or bliss, awe, or her emotional and spiritual states induced, for example, by her practice of mindfulness, yoga, listening to or producing music, creative arts and so on. These early relationships can influence health across the lifespan, for better or worse. Early adversity becomes “biologically embedded” in dysfunctional physiology involving body systems; just as nurturing experiences promote functional physiology. This happens because infancy is a sensitive developmental period when human beings are especially responsive to their environments.  Fostering nurturing experiences and providing compassionate caring services in early life, especially when mothers experience mental challenges allow mothers and their infants and families to move towards a healthier life trajectory.

THE POWER OF IMAGINATION THAT INCLUDE RELATIONAL BEING

 Many tribal cultures consider the birthdate of a child not from when he/she is born, not from when he/she is conceived, but from the day that the child’s spirit was heard by his/her mother (Sansone, 2021). In fact, when a couple wishes to conceive a baby, the woman goes out into the bush, sits alone under a tree and sings a song to call for the soul of the child. Here she waits and listens until she hears the soul of the child to whom she will give birth. Conception occurs, in the eyes of these people, at the moment that this song is heard, and the soul of the child is visualised. The mother then teaches the song to the father, so that the child’s spirit is called during lovemaking. Successful conception is then followed by dances and ceremonies. The same song will be sung during pregnancy and childhood to create an element of continuum and familiarity. Indigenous women reveal an embodied narrative with their unborn baby from the very first moments of conception and even before. They treat the baby in the womb with respect and as a partner for whom they are guardians.

 Vocal music and dances have been used to transmit and celebrate cultural, moral, and spiritual events and values, to calm, to enable feelings of safety, to build a sense of community since humanity has existed. Believing in the soul of the child before conceiving it and celebrating to welcome it into the womb boost the couple’s fertility and support pregnancy, birth, and bonding. Indeed, our beliefs affect our cells, physiology and health (Lipton, 2015).

 Imagination widens perception by opening the senses and heart and influencing our physiology and thus enriches our experience. Indigenous mothers can easily teach us the self-regulating homeostatic function of these beliefs and imagination. If a mother imagines talking to her unborn baby and believes he/she is listening, or cradles him with rhythmic deep breathing, this has a physiological effect on her and her baby. Her thought of the baby or intentional communication evokes real bodily sensations of pleasure or calmness and release of oxytocin that are passed to the developing baby. A study of the communication between mother and preborn baby or newborn using measures of heart rate variability showed that they react differently when the mother talks to them either vocally or silently than when she talks about the baby to an adult (Busnel et al., 2006). They react similarly when mothers communicate vocally or silently. This suggests the baby’s response to mother’s intentional direct communication. Another study showed that unborn babies displayed a longer duration of mouth opening in the interactive talk compared to the non-interactive talk condition, which is evidence of the baby’s capacity to discriminate between interactive and non-interactive stimulation (Doughty, 2021). The same study showed the unborn baby displaying differential right-hand self-touch behaviours in response to maternal touch.

If mothers can use their minds and energy to enter positive states and hold positive beliefs, these can in turn contribute to a form of nourishment or healing as well as bonding with the unborn baby. This is what our indigenous mothers have done for millennia to prepare mind, body, and soul for conception and welcome the baby into a healthy womb. By doing so, mothers with their creativity and inner resources can be the very leaders in healthcare, fostering the creation of a new generation who know how to generate their own health and consequently a womb environment in which their offspring can thrive.

HARNESSING THE POWER OF MUSIC IN UTERO: THE FIRST SENSE OF RHYTHM 

Because the unborn baby is a sentient being able to respond to and be affected by music, lyrics, and melody and the mother’s emotional experience of it, exposure to music from prenatal life can stimulate movements and psychoneurological development and provide the baby with an enriching experience. Evidence supports that babies in the womb are sensitive and aware, social, communicative, perceive pain and react to touch, smell, sounds and maternal emotions and responses to events (Chamberlain, 2003; Kisilevsky et. al. 2003). Therefore, they perceive music and respond to it. Prosocial and love capacities emerge easily from companionship and care, where since conception the environment signals “all the way down” that the child is welcome (Emerson, 1996). This energy state and a sense of early connection is transferred to subsequent generations.

Alfred Tomatis describes the unborn baby’s sonorous experience, in particular listening to the maternal voice and vocal music (its timbre, tone and emotional nuances) as an organiser of his/her hearing system and listening (1987). This system is regulated by the social engagement system, which regulates facial muscles, including middle ear muscles that enable us to pick up human voice and other melodies from background sounds (Porges, 2011). Babies start hearing in utero at about 16-20 weeks, when the hearing system, including the middle ear muscles, is fully developed, although they can perceive sounds via vibrations far beforehand. They can actively listen to music and respond to it with movements in rhythm to the beat, indicating that music can be an effective rhythmic stimulation of the baby’s sensorimotor system, enriching prenatal experiences and creating a sense of rhythm. The memory of sounds is also the memory of physical contact and energy in the womb, as sounds emit vibrations in the form of energy fields, especially if they have an emotional content.

The womb environment provides the unborn baby with multiple potential sources of rhythmic stimulation that are not present in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). Maternal breathing, heartbeats, walking, dancing, speaking, lullaby, singing, etc., all bathe the baby in an environment of varied rhythmic stimuli: vestibular, somatosensory, tactile, and auditory. Studies highlight the importance of introducing human stimulating rhythms, such as maternal voice, music, skin-to-skin lullaby, in the NICU to secure a vital continuum and promote growths (Nocker-Ribaupierre, 1999; Starndley & Moore, 1995; Provasi et al., 2021).  This stimulation decreased developmental delays by increasing brain growth along with fostering synaptic connections. Enhanced later relational engagement and motor development were observed at 5 months and better verbal skills at age 6. Studies on premature babies’ neuropsychological response to music have helped us understand the impact of musical experience on foetal development.

COMMUNICATIVE MUSICALITY

During a 33-week scan while I was listening to my favourite piano music, my preborn daughter looked content, appearing to attentively perceive the music and attune to my emotional response to music. I used to feel her movements in response to music a few seconds after the onset of the musical piece.  Observations suggest that when the unborn baby hears music, he/she responds to the maternal emotional response to it and the related biochemical mediators, which may explain the relapse in the baby’s response to music (Zimmer et al., 1982). Newborn babies’ responses to maternal voice and other forms of music they were exposed to during pregnancy reveal the presence of prenatal memory.  A newborn baby recognizes the mother’s unique voice and is soothed by it and drawn to it when there is a range of voices present (Hepper & Shahidullah, 1994). Unborn babies who had been recited a short child’s rhyme aloud in the last trimester responded with a decrease in heat rate whereas the control babies did not (De Casper et al., 1994). Unborn babies’ ability to discriminate between low-pitched piano notes (testing cardiac deceleration) may play an important role in the earliest development stages of speech perception (Lecanuet et al., 2000). Prenatal memory offers the newborn babies experiences of continuity that can help them in the separation and transition from the womb to the outside world.

 Mothers I worked with reported their babies’ recognition of the music played during pregnancy by either relaxing or moving in rhythm with it, according to the type of music. Babies are born with an innate musical intelligence, a sense of rhythm, and narrative awareness (Malloch & Trevarthen, 2018; Sansone, 2004). They move in rhythm with the mother’s voice in the first few minutes and hours of life, resulting in a beautiful synchronised “dance” between two companions. If these capacities are already present at birth, it means they form during pregnancy through exposure to sounds and melodies. This suggests that the baby learns to move in rhythm with maternal speech and other regular sonorous stimulation and that this learning occurs long before birth. Their shared music listening allows a mother to feel and observe the baby’s fluidity of movements, via his/her responses to music. Colwyn Trevarthen has coined the term “communicative musicality” as the basis of sympathy and ‘feeling with’ (Trevarthen, 2011).

  This early musicality can be kindled through creative communication and music. It can help form and strengthen bonding and influence language development, which is rooted in a sense of rhythm developing during the preverbal stage. Children play out their earliest implicit memories, including musical memory, through their body, creativity – in particular, drawings and paintings – and behavior.  Everything that has happened to us in the womb, at birth, and throughout our lifetime is remembered in our body and contributes to our embodied mind. Prenatal memory can be fostered through creative activities and promote expanded consciousness. Mothers can be the leaders in the promotions of Creative Health. Below are three drawings my daughter Gisele did around age two, reflecting her in-utero exposure to piano classical music. The colourfulness may represent associations with her rich sensorimotor and emotional experiences stored in her body memory.

Baby Gisele’s Drawings

By responding to the mother’s emotional response to the music, the unborn baby learns about her emotions and a first ‘Other’, a first relationship. Therefore, musical experience in the womb may provide the neurobiological substrate that will influence subsequent experiences. It forms earliest memories (body or implicit memory). It creates recognition of a familiar element the baby has been regularly exposed to and a tool to self-calm and resilience. Aged 17, Gisele has been using music since early life to release stress and cope with life challenges. She often reports that music induces a physiological state of calm and harmony in her, influencing her perception of reality. Stephen Porges teaches us that the improved regulation induced by music or vocal prosody is mediated by the myelinated vagus, which promotes health, growth and restoration (Porges, 2011). Because Gisele was regularly exposed to melodic music during her prenatal life, we can assume that it was when this psycho-physiological regulation begun.

UNDERSTANDING BABY’S MOVEMENT’S AND PREFERENCES

An unborn baby can show preferences to the music through the quality of his/her movements.   In a beautiful May evening, when I was eight-month pregnant, I was listening to Symphony No 40 in G Minor by Mozart, St Passion BWV244 by Bach, and Piano Concerto No 21 in C Mayor by Mozart. Baby Gisele reacted to a fast rhythm and high notes with more intense movements. She appeared to be significantly more active with Concerto No 21 on, and at times she moved almost in rhythm with it. On another evening I was listening to Fur Elise by Beethoven, Venezianisches Gondellied by Mendelssohn Bartholdy and some Chopin. Her patterns of response felt more distinct and established through the movements that clearly appeared by stretching the skin of my abdomen. Sometimes they were so vigorous that the shape of my belly changed completely and was covered with pronounced sticking-out rolling bumps – true forms of vitality. Musical tracks with higher speed of notes and intensity of sonorous emission induced activity, while those with less intensity and low speed of notes seemed to relax her more. Her movements had also acquired a new quality, becoming more ovoidal and fluid, compared to the jerky movements during her earlier gestational age. This was the result of experience and a more advanced maturational stage.

More interestingly, with habituation to the musical pieces, Gisele was learning to anticipate the onset of music, which I used to listen to at the same time in the evening, showing attunement with my intention. Through these early musical experiences, Gisele might have been developing a ‘musical self’ and even showed preferences for the melodies. I had an intimate sense of awe and anticipation that I would see some links between her prenatal experiences and her creative personality as a child and adult, which has been revealed throughout her childhood. Not only did she learn to play piano and composed her first musical piece at the age of seven, but she has shown since her early childhood great imagination, self- and other-awareness, communication and linguistic and creative writing skills, space orientation skills, and a caring kind nature. Although an embryo and foetus have their own self-organising drive, mothers can influence their children’s predispositions during prenatal life through creative mindfulness cultivation and human connection, supported by a resonating community.

 This convergence between neurophysiological state and music-related emotional experience can be also explained by the polyvagal theory (Porges, 2007). The polyvagal theory is used as an organizing principle to explain how music, especially music expressed in music therapy, can engage the neural mechanisms that integrate facial muscles and visceral state, and consequently promote restorative affective states and prosocial behaviour.  This explains how music listening has a calming effect on mother and baby by lowering heart rate and cortisol (stress hormone) level and releasing endorphins (feel-good hormone) (de Witte et al., 2020). By reducing mother’s stress and enhancing her mind state, music can promote mother-baby connection and bonding during pregnancy, building the foundations of human connectedness and cooperation.

Through music, dances, storytelling, lullabies, singing, and other interactive activities, indigenous mothers and their communities intentionally practice receptive attention and are aware of the importance of slowing down and taking time to notice all appropriate cues to attune their responses (Kohn, 2013). By doing so, pregnant mothers can notice the movement cues of their unborn babies, connect with them and learn about them, which is preparatory for the post-partum relationship. The cultivation of these early human receptiveness and connection explains the indigenous people’s mindful slow-paced movements and social interactions, in particular with babies, which is a continuum from the embryonic and foetal unfolding of fluid movements, contrasting the hurried tense movements in our society.

Listening to music and speaking rhymes during my pregnancy strengthened the connection with my baby and sharpened my receptive attention and ability to pick up her cues and get to know her from before birth. Regularly listening to my favourite piano music contributed to shape my daughter’s sense of rhythm, love of playing piano and composing music, as well as her personality prosocial and creative predispositions. It created a blueprint directing her in life. The memory of sounds is also a memory of physical contact and energy in the womb, as sounds emit vibrations in the form of energy fields, especially if they have an emotional content. From an early age, Gisele manifested a capacity to attune with and understand others’ feelings, write imaginative stories, mind-read or see beyond the visible and a curiosity about human development and in interest in human rights and ecological protection, reflecting in the choice of her studies.

These practices, which have been cultivated by our indigenous ancestors for millennia, release tensions and regulate emotions, and a range of psychophysiological benefits are transmitted to the unborn baby. These are not just activities; they are gateways of perception and tools for expressing the full potential of being. It is surprising how little research exists on how these collective activities affect pregnant mothers’ mind, brain and body and how they might prevent or alleviate trauma, with beneficial effects on the developing baby. Our growing knowledge of the phenomenon of neuroplasticity has made it clear that regularly listening to music or engaging with other kinds of meaningful practices such as mindfulness meditation or creative Arts, are not mere intellectual activities, but biological activities that affect maternal brains, bodies, and souls as well as those of our unborn babies. They sow the seeds for human primal sense of togetherness or WE and belonging.

In our primal home is the foundation of human creativity, since our primal experiences in the womb influence humans’ ability to creatively reshape the world to reflect their primal home, depending on the possibilities open to them in the age they live in. There is no doubt that music and maternal prosody transfer love and other emotions as well as wisdom and these convey long term developmental benefits which will allow little ones to approach their full potential as human beings. Music expression and other nurturing practices can assist in supporting pregnant mothers with and without difficulties in forming or strengthening their relationship with the developing baby, setting the foundations for human flourishing.

The implications of sensorimotor experiences that occur in utero has not been sufficiently explored. My follow-up of Gisele’s postnatal development and personality and links with her prenatal experiences and memories and observations of indigenous and Caucasian mothers and infants are a valuable source for revelations about prenatal intelligence and the importance of nourishing it. Through programs focused on the unborn baby as sentient communicative being, active conscious participant in creating health, thus a shift in healthcare, we can promote maternal health and mother-baby bonding and secure the most powerful legacy of health and flourishing for children and the future of humanity and Mother Earth.

RESOURCES

Explore Kindred’s posts and podcasts on birth psychology/prenatal and perinatal experiences

Discover national and international resources supporting healthy birth and pregnancy.

Soothing Perinatal Experiences is one of nine components of our Evolved Nest, our evolutionary pathway to wellbeing. Explore the Evolved Nest’s Learning Center science-based resources for prenatal life.