Some live with a constant undercurrent of anxiety, numbness, or disconnection from their bodies. Although they may appear to function well, life stressors can intensify these undercurrents, causing significant suffering. Often linked to attachment and developmental trauma, or shock traumas like physical or sexual abuse, an overlooked yet profound influence may stem from pre- and perinatal experiences—our time in the womb and first year of life.
Much of what I’m sharing here is from my Neuro-Affective Touch teacher, Dr. Aline Lapierre, and her research on pre-prenatal trauma. I've learned that early experiences profoundly shape our ability to regulate, be present, and embody. For some, terror can arise as a primal survival response with a sense of impending death before they go into shut down. For others, numbness "seem" to just creep in. Pre- and perinatal experiences are profoundly somatic. Early memories can encode cellularly even before the brain is online and the nervous system develops (starting around 6 weeks). I will only talk about a few influences from these early times.
Nesting in the Womb
Dr. Lapierre shared that our initial attachment bonding experience is believed to begin as the fertilized egg nests into the lining of the uterus (by the end of 1st week after conception), lets go and yields to acceptance and holding as it is received. Trust and yielding already start to imprint into these developing cells on an energetic level and has an impact in our capacity to attach and bond.
If the mother is stressed or traumatized, her uterus will actually not be as flush with nourishment and oxygen as that of a mother who is fully supported and rested. Yielding is not possible and may be echoed as anxiety or distrust in intimate relationships or interfere with bonding in infancy.
She says those early prenatal experiences remain unconscious, and the stresses and traumas become part of our shadow material. Feeling unwelcome or fearing embodiment can solidify a sense of disconnection, manifesting as not feeling real or believing we don’t matter. Trauma experienced in the womb often recapitulates throughout life, resurfacing as dissociation, shut down, and a persistent sense of danger.
Furthermore, healing from this early imprint must be somatic—engaging touch, holding, safety, and resonance. Prenatal memories express themselves through posture, movement patterns, emotions, and imagery, offering pathways for deeper integration and healing. As a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner, I’m use to observing posture, movement patterns, emotions, and imagery, but now I hold the possibility of early imprints being expressed
Feeding & Safety
I learned from Dr. Lapierre that feeding patterns shape our early sense of safety. Neuro-affective patterns around latching and attaching to the breast (or bottle) and the whole process of sucking, is core to being able to take in, ingest (as opposed to digest, which happens sub-diaphragmatically).
Dr. Lapierre, citing Stephen Porges, explains that “ingesting turns off our threat response... part of our ventral vagus circuit coordinates the striated muscles of the face and head—sucking, swallowing, and breathing.” This is how a baby first engages with the world.
The ventral vagal state supports feelings of safety, calm, and connection. However, if there are issues with feeding—such as difficulty latching or infant is unable to yield into a dysregulated, inattentive caregiver- it can lead to persistent high-threat responses throughout life and our emotional sense of nourishment. Memories of our early feeding are deeply embedded in the body, not in conscious thought, as we functioned mainly from the right brain. The reflective left brain is not yet online.
Energetic Messages from Mother
The final influence I’d like to highlight is the energetic imprint of how welcomed the embryo, fetus, or baby feels by the mother. Is the message, “I’m glad you’re here. You are wanted. Welcome home”? This sense of being welcomed shapes the baby’s ability to yield into comfort, trust its body as a safe place, and establish a foundational sense of security. When this foundation is strong, we can trust life itself, allowing for deeper vulnerability—an essential element of intimate relationships.
For a baby whose mother is traumatized, emotionally absent, or ambivalent about the pregnancy, yielding becomes challenging. I learned from Dr. Lapierre that there is no receptive energetic field in which the baby can yield her nervous system and engage in a relational exchange with being embodied and alive. Instead, it may feel as if there is nothing to catch it, as though it is falling into an abyss. This can lead to a deep sense of not belonging, feeling like an outsider, experiencing the body as unreal, and developing a pervasive numbness.
I wrote this as a psycho-education piece for my clients but I hope other readers can benefit. I’d like to offer a few tools that may be helpful.
Disclaimer: I am not a licensed therapist or mental health counselor. What I offer is for educational purposes and is not a substitute for therapy. Please engage only in what feels comfortable for you.
Tools to Support Your Healing
Yielding Into Safety
You might notice that yielding is a recurring theme in the influences I mentioned earlier. As Dr. Lapierre explains, yielding is about trusting and receiving. When we can yield, we feel safer and more solid inside, allowing us to navigate life's challenges with greater resilience.
Our back plays a crucial role in yielding. I learned from Dr. Lapierre that the sympathetic nervous system runs along the spine. Between each vertebra, nerves connect to our organs—where emotions are believed to be held.
Dr. Lapierre teaches that when a fertilized egg implants in the uterine lining, it does so from what will become the baby’s back—the spine. This suggests that our back is deeply foundational to our sense of support and safety.
One simple yet powerful practice is to rest your spine, allowing it to be fully held by a chair or bed. You might think, "My back is on the chair or bed," but can you soften into that support? With my clients, I sometimes ask: "Is there any reason why it’s not safe to let go into the support of the chair in this moment?" The body then realizes there isn’t a threat, and it can let go a little into the holding. The breath may open up and some muscles relax. Even if you can only let go for a moment, that’s breaking a pattern. We don't want to let go too much too fast as we need to build tolerance for ease.
Importantly, you don’t lose the ability to brace—it will always be there when you need it. Also creating a new pattern requires repetition — yielding again and again.
When scared, we can forget our limbs. Moving your ankle joints, raising your heels, moving your wrists, elbows, and shoulders brings arms and legs back online as we need them to self-protect even on subconscious level. Feeling your weight on the chair to ground and opening the cranial base helps to support the spine to yield.
The cranial base, where the skull meets the spine often locks up to disconnect from overwhelming body sensations and emotions. Gently unlock this area:
Mindfully nod yes with small forward, middle, and backward motions. This is for C- 1. Repeat
Gently shake your head no with small side-to-side movements. This is for C-2. Repeat
Notice any shifts such as changes in your breath, muscle tension, or overall sense of ease.
Placing warm buckwheat-type pillows around your neck, back, chest, or belly can be helpful as it can give a sensory signal of warmth and safety to relax the body. You might like to create a nest for yourself with pillows and blankets. Yielding into safety and feeling that somatically, you could give yourself welcoming messages like, "It's safe for me to feel my aliveness."
Self-comforting touch to areas of contraction, such as the belly and solar plexus, can help deactivate old terror held by our younger parts and we don't have to numb out. As we track how these parts show up in bracing patterns of danger, we have more space from them, not default to worst-case scenarios as our adult consciousness is more online.
To support the ingesting phase, you might try using a straw, mindfully pull in water as you breathe in through your nose, swallow, feel the water going down to your belly, and feel the satisfaction. This way of "ingesting" can open your core to relax as we tend to tighten up in our core when we feel stressed or threat. When you’re drinking tea, mindfully enjoy the warm liquid in your mouth, swallow, and feel it go down to your belly. Feel the goodness, thus rewiring signals of safety in your gut.
I hope you find the above tools useful. I want to emphasize doing little bits at a time and often, to build the window of tolerance for safety and to rewire the central nervous system. The pre- and perinatal field is vast. Besides training in Neuro-Affective Touch with Dr. Lapierre, I’ve done some courses through Kate White MA, RCST ®, SEP, PPNE and Castellino Trainings. I hold this knowledge with curiosity rather than as a rigid determinant of what happens when early lacks occur. Each of us is unique, and our responses vary. Most importantly, I trust in the power of our life force—the innate drive that propels us to grow and evolve.
Brianna Lia Ho, MBA, BBA-PSYC is a NARM Master Practitioner & Somatic Experiencing Practitioner, also certified in Integral Somatic Psychology as well as in spiritual counseling with the American Institute of Health Care Professionals. She’s also trained in somatic attachment work including Transforming the Experienced-Based Brain & Somatic Resilience Regulation, and Neuro-Affective Touch. She sees clients internationally on Zoom www.Essence-Alive.com.
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