PPNE 2nd: Module 7: Communication through Cultural Impacts

Communication through Cultural ImpactsBabies are continually communicating and seeking connection. Relating and responding to baby in ways that honor their multifaceted capacities for communication supports optimal development and wholeness. The way we communicate is influenced greatly by culture, which in turn has an undeniable impact on how efficient and effective communication is. Babies have their own way of expressing their inner world through non-volitional, non-random gestures. This non-verbal, somatic language has not been recognized in the majority of cultures across the globe. This module explores numerous birth cultures, as well as cultural impacts on the psyche of babies, and in turn how the psyche of a baby impacts society at large.

Learning Objectives:

• Trace the historical demise of the midwifery model of care in Western societies and the origins of the medicalization of birth
• Identify cultural components that impact the psyche of a baby and explain how these components led to general trends in emotional repression and lack of awareness to the sentience of children
• Discuss the somatic, pre-verbal language of babies and how non-volitional, non-random gestures have been mapped by pioneers in the pre and perinatal sciences to specific periods in prenatal development and during birth
• Compare and contrast cultural influences on birth practices from the East to the West, including indigenous people
• Describe birth models that support the subtle/etheric body
• Identify ways in which human biology is linked to nature