EFT and Cuddle Therapy

Cuddle Therapy and EFT

EFT points for Premature babies - (this will take you away from this site)

For a newborn baby, freshly arrived from a reality of pure love and light, birth is an exciting yet potentially traumatic event. Its moist, warm, dark, nourishing mother-womb-heartbeat has been its sanctuary in physical reality until now. There has been no inside and outside, no mother and self – just the experience of oneness.

The baby is thrust inexorably into a strange new world. As it emerges, it desperately needs reassurance that it has not been ripped asunder from the oneness. It needs love, warmth, tenderness, gentle light and its mother’s already-familiar voice. Its needs reassurance of skin-to-skin contact with its motherhood an atmosphere of unhurried calm and welcome – a sacred space – so that it can emerge into this new experience with a feeling of safety and trust. – Gill Edwards: Pure Bliss

What is 'Cuddle Therapy'? ............. It is the joy, relief and good feeling that come from holding something close.

What is EFT and Cuddle Therapy?

Its about 'building a bridge' of energy/love between people, using these dolls as the bridge. For example, a newborn and its mother are still 'connected' with their energy, even though the physical has separated. However, when there is so much fear and trauma around both of them it is difficult to 'focus' on any kind of healing. These dolls, along with a therapist, help the mother to focus her love, rather than her fear, thus enabling the body's energy system to work efficiently, therefore able to help heal both of them.

Cuddle Therapy is used just the same should it be an illness, fear, grief. Once Cuddle Therapy starts, the body relaxes and the body's energy system 'balances' out, allowing it to heal.

Imagine being a mother, having given birth pre-term to a low-birth weight baby. Your baby spends all its early days in an incubator, receiving life-supporting care, and all you want to do is cuddle and feed her.

Times like this can make lactation hard to establish, even to be able to use your own milk and tube feed your baby, feel 'impersonal'. And a cuddle can seem days, weeks, away.

What kind of Trauma are both mother and baby going through? Even with a natural vaginal birth the mother will still have some kind of Birth trauma. Her baby will probably have arrived long before its due date and the birth will have been unexpected. This can leave all kinds of negative emotions within the body's energy system. Her baby will be a low birth weight and could have all kinds of medical problems. Even if baby is healthy for its 'dates', the mother will still not be able to take care of her newborn the way she would have imagined. If the mother has had a caesarean then her body will need to 'heal' both physically and energetically.

I believe EFT and Cuddle Therapy can help with this.

How can premature birth affect the baby?

Although I do not want to go into detail of how this could, in some case, be handled better with a process called Kangaroo Care, of which details can be found on my website, I do want to show how premature birth and the aftercare with a premature baby can traumatize the newborn.

For the premature/sick newborn painful procedures like injections or blood tests are carried out routinely, without taking into account the nightmarish character these acts possess for a tiny defenseless creature.

We now know that this leaves the baby with traumatic imprints within the energy system, which are with the baby throughout the rest of its life and could, at some point, result in physical illness – Nathalie Charpak: Kangaroo babies

Our current knowledge of the brain’s development clearly shows that a newborn baby resents pain just like you and me. Contrary to what we used to think, the pain threshold appears to be lower among premature babies. By the twenty-fourth week after conception, the sensory receptors are perfectly developed, worst still; the premature baby will experience even slight pain in a less localized, longer and more vivid way than an older baby.

A baby cannot verbalize it suffering: it expresses it either in a change of behaviour or in extreme modification of certain physiological parameters such as heart rate or oxygenation, the baby’s heart can stop beating and a baby can suffocate as a result of intense pain. Research is showing that some children who have Asthma have indeed been through this experience. Is this the trauma of what has happened as a baby coming through in later years, showing itself as a problem with breathing??

Research showing that suicide – involving asphyxiation were closely associated with asphyxiation with mechanical birth trauma. Juvenile violent criminality risk factor has been found the main risk factor for violent crime at age 18 was the association of birth complications - Michael Odent: Primal health

In an incubator the level of bright light to which a premature baby is subjected is five to ten times higher than the level recommended for office workers. Under a phototherapy lamp, it is even worse; the increased brightness can reach 250 to 2,500 times the average mean reference that is acceptable for an adult

The noise to which a baby is exposed in an incubator is far greater than the noise permissible for working adults.

With such negative information associated around traumatic births and problematic aftercare, we need to look at how the baby, and indeed the mother can be helped to overcome the negativity around this time.

This has led me to EFT and Cuddle Therapy. I believe that combined, these therapies can give immense benefit to both mother and baby

Cuddling these life like dolls, can for the mother, bring comfort to an empty feeling of being unable to nurse her own baby. A woman will rock the doll and show all the emotion that she would if her baby were in her arms. Often this brings immense emotions to the surface that would, otherwise be suppressed, only to maybe surface later in depression or physical dis-ease. When the mother becomes distressed the EFT therapist can use this opportunity to help the woman by guiding her through the process of tapping. These dolls seem to ‘allow’ the mother to express her feelings and a trained EFT practitioner can watch for her reactions and help her at each stage.

If the parents wish, these dolls can be used as a surrogate for the tiny/sick baby in the incubator. Whilst cuddling/holding the doll, the parents are able to tap/stroke on the EFT tapping points whilst using suitable words to either comfort the baby or heal. Click for details

Picture a new mother who is unable to hold and cuddle her premature/sick baby having the opportunity to cuddle one of these dolls. Whilst doing so, she is helped to express her emotions, by using EFT. Cuddling these dolls brings all kinds of emotion to the surface, which can then be worked through, being much healthier for both mother and baby.

Could have access to one of these special dolls; help the bonding process and lactation to become successful? I believe it can. Instead of adrenalin running through the body because the mother is anxious, cuddling one of these dolls and using EFT can replace that adrenalin with oxytocin, which is the hormone needed for lactation.

There are many other fields of study that need research. Could this 'Cuddle Therapy' help mothers who have had a stillbirth? Grief that is suppressed and held within the body's energy system, can lead to future physical illness and depression, even Post Natal depression.

We know from experience that the mourning process that any mother goes through when her baby dies is less difficult when the mother has been able to do something for her baby than when the baby dies in an incubator and she has been unable to do anything. The process of grieving can be got through in an infinitely better way if the parents have felt they have contributed to their baby’s care. Imagine if the mother were able to use EFT to help her baby? She would know she had done all she could, plus be left with this wonderful tool that can help her through her own grieving process.

Using EFT and Cuddle Therapy with baby.

We know that healing can take place-using EFT with surrogate tapping. The mother can hold her baby and use EFT by gently stroking the 'tapping points', click for details. Or if the baby is in an incubator then she can hold one of these dolls and use it as a surrogate, again either stroking the doll or very gently tapping the EFT points.

The words chosen for the setup click for examples and whilst tapping/stroking the EFT points can be 'guided' by the qualified EFT therapist. Soon mum will learn how to do this by herself. Giving her a positive outlook for her baby’s health. Once positive thoughts replace the negative in her energy system, her own body will begin to heal.

EFT and Cuddle Therapy could also be used along side Kangaroo Care

What a gift to give both the mother and baby for their future together.

It has been suggested that cuddle therapy along with Holistic care could help raise the hormone levels of woman going through IVF. Also woman going through early menopause. Feeling that they have lost their womanhood by not being able to have any more children. Could these 'dolls' help balance the hormones?

I believe the use of EFT and Cuddle Therapy is the way forward to secure a less traumatic future for birthing and care in the neonatal units.