Published by North Atlantic Books, California

ISBN 1-55643-264-X

As a Doula and CranioSacral Therapist, there are several books that I recommend to pregnant women and new parents, and The Mind of Your Newborn Baby is always the very first one.

One peer reviewer suggested that readers “put a ribbon around this book for every pregnant woman you know, and the earlier the better”, and I couldn’t agree more.

Dr Chamberlain served as the President of the Association for Pre- and Perinatal Psychology for eight years, and brings to this book both riveting research as well as a true appreciation of newborns as fully cognitive human beings who experience their world in profound, yet unspoken, detail.

In the first half of the book he discusses, in very readable detail, the baby’s physical and emotional growth and responses in-utero.  He gives fascinating glimpses into the development of the brain and laying down of the neural pathways which these little individuals will use make sense of, and respond to, their world forever.

Using evidence drawn from hundreds of studies, he compelling puts to rest the still-perpetuated myths that newborns feel no pain, are unable to understand or communicate, and that they cannot think or remember.  He discusses in detail the sensory responses of sight, hearing, taste and smell of newborn babies, and how exquisitely elevated these senses are at birth.

Dr Chamberlain mentions, for example, several visual studies conducted on babies who, at less at five minutes old, were presented with big photos of women’s faces.  Every child in the study found, and continued to look at, the face of his or her own mother.  Each baby knew, with certainty, exactly who they “belonged” to.

The second half of the book is given to the exploration of the phenomenon of birth memories.  The validation of this phenomenon is explored from a psychological perspective, and several actual transcripts of individual’s memories are included, as well as details of their births which could in no way have been known to them.

The Mind of Your Newborn Baby gives insight into the world of the preborn and newborn  that everyone - from parents, to doctors and midwives – would truly benefit from having.