So, you want to have a baby, you’re pregnant, just had a baby or you’re at the point of your journey where you’re curious about the likes of motherhood BUT your sisters, mom, aunts, cousins, friends from childhood and college all have their own ideas about it. On top of that there are approximately 30,000 books on Amazon covering the topics of pregnancy, motherhood and raising babies. Who’s got the right answer? Where’s the space for your feelings, thoughts and motherly instincts about it all?
When I was pregnant, I felt I had no idea how to care for children or be pregnant, let alone give birth. Yet, the thousands of years of women birthing along with my lovey doula handing me The Continuum Concept smiling saying, “You gotta read this,” brought comfort. I’ve always been an instinctual girl who “goes to the beat of her own drum” as my mother likes to call it. When I read this book, it felt like permission to trust my undeveloped mother instincts.
This is the subject of the Continuum Concept: In Search of Happiness Lost, by Jean Liedloff. The very book that inspired Karin Frost in 2002, to birth Ergobaby. In short, the Continuum Concept is the idea that we as humans are innately designed to exist in the world without governments, mandates, policies, “advanced" technology and “civilization." The concept that we have and know everything it takes to live and survive in the wild as human beings possibly at peace or one with Mother Nature, no interventions necessary. Yes, this is another book or rather as noted, a Concept. Yet, it is a far cry from a “How To" book. It’s an exploration of, as the title states: The Search for Happiness Lost. A book about one woman’s journey in search for “rightness” who stumbles upon the cultural lives of The Yequanas, a Stone Age Tribe from the jungles of South America. The book unpacks how when lined up inside of The Continuum Concept philosophy, the health and development of the mother and baby lead to a happy life that extends out to their tribe and village.
The Continuum Concept calls on that, “To make of the intellect a competent servant instead of an incompetent master must be a major goal of continuum philosophy.” In other words, the continuum is somewhat of a subconsciousness of natural tendencies and trust in ourselves towards our intuitions with Mother Nature at the helm.
But, before you abandon advice that someone’s offered, I want to preface that the Yequana Tribe of South America have been living this way for centuries. The last two chapters of Leidloff’s book are a response to our “Society” and “Putting Continuum Principles Back to Work” in our “civilized” culture because let’s face it, we don’t spend our days in nature, we drive mostly everywhere, we buy our food from markets and we wear different clothes every day, you know where this is going…
“When our antecedents went about on all fours and had fur to cling to, it was the babies who kept the mother-child bond from interruption. Their survival depended upon it. As we became hairless and stood up on our hind legs, freeing the mother’s hands, it became incumbent upon her to keep them together. That she recently, in some places in the world, taken her responsibility to maintain their contact to be a matter of option does not alter in the least the powerful urgency of the baby’s needs to be held.”
The concept in this book gifted me something deep in myself. The concept that by design I was built to have my children and thrive from “Mother’s Work” in a way no one had ever taught me and develop in ways never discussed with me in my eighteen years of education as a woman.
“She herself is being deprived of a precious part of her own expected life experience, the enjoyment of which would have encouraged her to continue to behave as is most rewarding both to herself and to her baby.”
Long before I could imagine what my intuitions were in order to care for myself in life, they became highly noticeable during my pregnancy (especially after reading this book). With the Continuum in mind during labor and birth, it reminded me that I have everything it takes to deliver a strong, healthy baby and thrive myself because of my relationship with her.
“In the infant kept in constant contact with the body of a caretaker, his energy field becomes one with hers and excess energy can be discharged for both of them by her activities alone. The infant can remain relaxed, free of accumulating tension, as his extra energy flows into hers.”
The initial response to my birthing choices was met by eye rolls and criticism that admittedly did not feel good but I did it anyway. These choices included to birth in a birthing center and not a hospital, keep my baby inside for 40 days after birth and not have her held by anyone else except my family caregivers, breastfeed and refuse formula, wear my baby and not use a crib or stroller and many several alternative choices to date. By no means do I think this is how all babies should be handled but these were my instincts and I allowed myself the freedom to have them.
What I learned and what this book has to offer over and over again with different passes is that innate feelings do not get taken away by the luxurious conveniences of modern-day culture but rather dulled as well as the possible experience of inadequacy and incapability to know and trust ourselves and our babies. With the start of wearing your baby it becomes a tremendous leap of faith into the continuum process that follows a lineage of connection, care, and attention that the tribes of this culture have proven to provide a happiness our culture has somehow misplaced. Yet, I believe if we listen deeply, find our tribes, and trust those inner voices these innate feelings of the continuum await us to remember, like an old friend you haven’t seen who welcomes you like a day has not passed since you were last together- happy to be rediscovered.