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Synopsis
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This timely and heart-opening film brings together ground-breaking information about what babies truly are, what they know, and how we can 
support them to be their best as they develop and grow. The experiences we have at our births sets up our perceptive neurology and influences the way we perceive the events of our lives. These early interactions shape our human ability to learn, to trust, and to develop relationships as we grow older.
The film is alive with captivating stories and remarkable personal experiences of infants, children, and adults. It is warmly narrated by Noah Wyle who shares with us his passion for deeper understanding and awareness of what a baby truly is. What Babies Want looks into cutting-edge science, ancient cultures and traditional customs in search of ways to keep our children's spirits intact.
"The feeling of belonging is so important to everyone. Cutting edge research
is indicating that infants are awake and aware, and they know if they are wanted. They need a nurturing environment. They want to know that they are coming into a place where they belong, where they are loved, and where they can give their own love. We see the psychological damage in too many adults who are not met in this way, and have spent their adult lives searching to heal their loss.
If we offer babies and children a world that wants them, believes in them, and trusts them -- if we change our own ideas about what babies want, about what people want, perhaps we can bring more hope, more love, and more healing into the world."
-- Noah Wyle, Actor
support them to be their best as they develop and grow. The experiences we have at our births sets up our perceptive neurology and influences the way we perceive the events of our lives. These early interactions shape our human ability to learn, to trust, and to develop relationships as we grow older. The film is alive with captivating stories and remarkable personal experiences of infants, children, and adults. It is warmly narrated by Noah Wyle who shares with us his passion for deeper understanding and awareness of what a baby truly is. What Babies Want looks into cutting-edge science, ancient cultures and traditional customs in search of ways to keep our children's spirits intact.
"The feeling of belonging is so important to everyone. Cutting edge research
is indicating that infants are awake and aware, and they know if they are wanted. They need a nurturing environment. They want to know that they are coming into a place where they belong, where they are loved, and where they can give their own love. We see the psychological damage in too many adults who are not met in this way, and have spent their adult lives searching to heal their loss. If we offer babies and children a world that wants them, believes in them, and trusts them -- if we change our own ideas about what babies want, about what people want, perhaps we can bring more hope, more love, and more healing into the world."
-- Noah Wyle, Actor
Detailed Synopsis
 Chapter One |
Chapter Two |
Chapter Three |
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Chapter Four |
Chapter Five |
Chapter Six |
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Chapter Seven |
Chapter Eight |
Chapter Nine |
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Chapter One focuses on prenatal care, exploring evidence that even in the womb infants respond to events in the world. Ultrasound imagery has been used to observe responses and even apparent communication in prenatal infants from an early stage in their development. The prenatal experience contains our earliest impressions of the world in which we will live, and it presents the first opportunity for welcoming an infant with attentiveness, communication and care. "From all of our studies, we know that the baby is far more sophisticated than anything we ever gave them credit for being before. We didn't think it could have an experience, we didn't think it could sense anything, and we didn't think it had the brains to know what the senses were telling them. Babies seem to have a working mind, which is part of their consciousness, part of their human consciousness; it is not something that develops in stages, like the brain develops in stages, the mind is simply a part of who they are. That's a whole new idea." David Chamberlain, Psychologist |
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Chapter Two explores traditional customs found in ancient cultures designed to welcome babies previous to birth. Here we present rituals lead by Sobonfu Some' as practiced for millenia in her native land in a modern context with expecting mothers in the United States. "Talking to the baby is whatever is in your heart, whatever makes you feel welcome. I say to them: we appreciate you and the gift you are bringing. And at the same time it is a way of reminding them that if they are forgetting little gift they should remember to bring that too. And a way of telling them that there is going to be some arms here to hold them when they come. We don't come here as tourists we come here as people bearing basket full of goodies that we want to bring to the world so we are coming here because we have a purpose, with something to give to the world." Sobonfu Some, Keeper of the Rituals |
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Chapter three deals with the period of time immediately following birth, a time in which care and gentle attention is particularly important. It begins to address the nature and importance of infant - parent bonding, contrasting modern medical practice with traditional midwifery. In the modern hospital infants are frequently unnecessarily separated from the mother, thereby preventing the natural bonding process from occurring. In this chapter we also look at some of the long term effects of these early experiences as uncovered by some modern therapies. "Bonding is brought about by skin to skin contact of mother and infant after the infant comes out of the womb, and this bonding process goes on and we know exactly what it is, we know the three points of it: audiovisual communication which means eye contact and the mothers voice, nurturing, breast feeding, holding, massaging, fondling the infant in every way, and play: the play that spontaneously arises between the infant right from the beginning practically and the mother. If those three things are enacted then you have healthy growth in the child and the interesting thing is that you have tremendous new growth in the mother. She discovers an aspect of herself that she has never experienced before." Joseph Chilton-Pearce, Author "It was this unfolding of me. I had this huge rush of love and of course I loved this little infant baby more than I could ever imagine. Something opens up in you. It's like a trap-door that all of a sudden, you didn't know you had this particular well of feelings." Tracy Wyle, Baby Advocate "Bonding can be picked up almost any time of life, the need for it is so great. So if you miss it at birth, it can still be picked it up any time later in life. Body molding, eye contact, and sweet sounds can bring about bonding at any age. And I say, even in our mid-70's, I guarantee we still need eye contact, body molding, and sweet sounds in our lives!" Joseph Chilton-Pearce, Author |
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"From the very beginning, we're building the capacity to trust. If the baby isn't held and treated gently, if the baby is taken away and mom and baby are separated, the very first impression the baby has is: where's my mom? The baby will bond, but they'll bond with the machine that's next to them. And they'll bond with the crib or the walls, or the noise from the lights, but they're not bonding with a human being." Marti Glenn, Ph.D. |
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Noah Wyle, Actor |
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Beliefs about how the world is going to treat me and how I have to be in order to survive begin to get established in those first minutes and hours of life. And often parents don't understand that, and they reinforce it. Then we see it reinforced in school. For example, a child may have had a separation at birth and have been really scared. Maybe they had tubes down their throat and they go home and mom and dad are very present and very wonderful, but they don't understand that every time the baby starts to eat, they get scared and so they spit-up. So mom thinks "my breast is no good for the baby" and mom frowns, and baby gets reinforced that "what I'm doing is not acceptable; maybe I'm not acceptable". So the baby gets more fussy and they get labeled and then the child begins to live up to that label. Mom and dad think "we have to control that behavior" and so we blame them, "you're a bad boy; you're a bad girl" or "don't do that; I can't stand it when you do that" and the truth is the child is simply afraid. Marti Glenn, Ph.D. |
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"These ancient encoded wisdoms and powers and strengths that are released at the moment of birth. I had read about this, but I had never delivered one of my own until twenty years ago, and I had grown children then and I think 8 or 9 grandchildren by then, but I had another child of my own and I delivered it, I mean I was the only other person present at his birth, the child's mother delivered it. But I was stunned and astonished at the tremendous energy that filled that whole house, the house shook with that energy and it was an awesome near mystical experience for me, I would say that it was the closest thing to a wide awake mystical experience that I had ever had. Those of us who have delivered our children and made that contact ourselves know that it is an invitation to the greatest intimacy that life ever affords us, offered in that moment; and the infant is the one that offers that total vulnerable intimacy, and if we do not meet it, then the infant feels betrayed by the world, and so they're coming into a world they can'?t trust because it does not meet their most critical need right at that point." Joseph Chilton-Pearce, Author |
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"It is such a beautiful heart-opening experience, it is sacred work I think, to be able to be allowed to be with someone, when they have that experience of touching, and opening their hearts, is beautiful. To be with someone when they get into an altered state of consciousness and they experience their true self, sometimes they say its my essence, sometimes they say its my lost self, that I've been wondering where would I ever find myself again." Barbara Findeison, MFT |
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"It is not simply the responsibility of the parents to receive the infant. It?s important for the whole community to come forward and receive and welcome each child." Noah Wyle, Actor "When you do not belong, when you don't feel embraced by your community, that actually is a reason to start your grief right there. A lot of us walk around carrying grief on every part of our bodies, in every cell of ours because we are invisible; we are not seen, because our community has not embraced us for us to get us out of our invisibility." Sobonfu Some, Keeper of the Ritual |