 | |  | |  | |  | |  | |  | |  | |  | |  | |  | |  | | |
on the Origins of Violence, the Possibilities of Peace:
Preconception - Postpartum
compiled from the Assn. for Pre & Perinatal Psychology and Health (APPPAH)
These following studies along with others very clearly show that personality is shaped, for better or worse, by a chain of
events or risk factors that start often before conception and continue through the life span. Because every biological
process has a psychological correlate everything that happens to us, especially at the beginning of life, permanently
affects us. Whether your mother was awake or asleep when you were born, whether you were delivered vaginally or by
C-section, whether you roomed in with your mother or spent four weeks in an incubator--these things matter enormously.
1. Many experts believe that the "bonding/attachment" of babies and parents in the period
before and around birth will have life-long importance. Fifteen percent of U.S. children may
enter life without such an attachment, and feel no intimate, safe, and loving connection with
anyone, posing high risk of violent behavior.
2. Violence is learned, typically in the family circle. Domestic violence is the breeding place
for social violence. The scholarly literature on family violence has grown enormously. There
is a consensus of opinion that the rate of abuse among individuals with a history of abuse is
approximately six times higher than the base rate for abuse in the general population (Parke
and Collmer 1975). In some reports (Rohrbect and Twentyman 1986), neglected children
appear more dysfunctional than those abused. Observing abuse or extreme marital discord
may be as harmful to the development of the child as receiving physical abuse (Wolfe et al.
1985; Jaffe et al. 1986).
3. Violence is a mental health problem, perhaps the most serious mental health problem
facing society today.
4. A number of studies report findings suggesting the possibility of a relationship between
birth complications and violent behavior (Litt 1972). They offer the hypothesis that birth
complications result in brain damage that predisposes a child to impulsive and aggressive
behavior (Mungas 1983). Psychologist Adrian Raine and co-workers at the University of
Southern California, Los Angeles (1990) reported a significant association between birth
complications and early maternal rejection and violent crime at age 18. While only 4.5% of
the subjects had both risk factors, this small group accounted for 18% of all violent crimes.
The effect was specific to violence and was not observed for non-violent criminal acts.
5. Psychological tests of 14 juveniles on death row in U.S. prisons revealed major
neurological impairments, psychotic disorders, and low I.Q. scores--profound handicaps which
often reflect lack of nourishment and love during prenatal development.
6. For 60% of boys born in the United States today, hospital birth still ends with a violent
act: circumcision. 90% of the American men who are walking the streets today had this
painful initiation very shortly after birth. For them, sex and violence are linked.
7. About 30,000 children currently await adoption. Adoption, when it is the last in a series of
traumatic experiences perhaps including fetal alcohol poisoning, malnutrition, rejection, and
birth complications, can lead to antisocial behavior, especially in boys.
8. Certain birth complications, when accompanied by severe parental rejection/separation in
the first year, strongly influence criminal behavior in later life.
9. Infant monkeys, reared in isolation from mothers, develop structural, neurochemical, and
neuroelectrical abnormalities which mediate depression, hyperactivity, self-mutilation, and
pathologic violence. Human infants, similarly deprived for brief periods following birth, also
show these behaviors.
10. Abuse and neglect in the home is a leading cause of death for young children in the U.S.
outstripping deaths caused by accidental falls, choking on food, suffocation, drowning or
residential fires. The vast majority of abused and neglected children are under four years old.
In fact, the homicide rate among children in this age group has hit a 40-year high, a chilling
trend similar in scope to the violence directed at teenagers from street gunfire. The number
of violent acts against young children in the U.S. constitutes a public health crisis, annually
claiming the lives of at least 2,000 children and seriously injuring upwards of 140,000 others.
(Verny).
Forty five years ago a paper by Curtis (1963) first expressed the concern that abused or
neglected children would become tomorrow's violent criminals. Since then the notion of an
intergenerational transmission of violence has become the premier developmental hypothesis
in the field of abuse and neglect
11. For the first time in history, violent sexual assaults are being committed by boys younger
than ten years of age. More than 128 were convicted of rape in 1993.
12. Every 2 minutes, someone experiences attempted rape or sexual assault in America. In
the vast majority of cases, a female is raped by a male who is a relative, friend, neighbor,
or other trusted acquaintance. Nearly 90% of the assaults will involve a weapon and threat
of violence and death. 1 in 6 adult women has experienced sexual assault, and 1 in 33 adult
men. At least 12% of rape victims are children.
13. To be truly human, and humane, our society needs the awareness fostered by: conscious
conception, prenatal bonding, spontaneous birth, immediate postnatal maternal attachment,
delayed or nonexistent interventions upon the healthy newborn, genital integrity of male and
female babies, frequent skin-to-skin neonatal touch, breastfeeding, harmonious and
humorous parental teamwork, and extended family bonds.
The APPPAH website is www.birthpsychology.com