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Fourth Trimester
When the baby comes out, the true umbilical cord is cut
forever … yet the baby is still, in that second, a
fetus … just a fetus one second older.
Peter Farb, Humankind
What an unforgettable moment the first time you see and touch your
new baby. His sweet smell, open gaze, and downy soft skin capture your
heart. But newborns can also be intimidating. Their floppy necks,
irregular breathing, and tiny tremors make them seem so helpless.
This vulnerability is why I believe that a fourth-trimester period of
imitating the womb is exactly what new babies need.
This need was probably obvious to you when your baby’s sobs melted
away the moment he was placed on your chest. Your ears and his cry
will now become a virtual umbilical cord, an attachment, like an
invisible bungee cord that stretches to allow you to walk around the
house—until a sharp yelp yanks you back to his side.
“When Stuart came out of me, he didn’t seem ready to
be in the world,” said Mary, a mother in my practice. “He
required almost constant holding and rocking to keep him
content. My husband, Phil, and I joked that he was like a
squishy cupcake that needed to go back in the oven for a
little more baking.”
In effect, what Mary and Phil realized was that Stuart needed a few
more months of “womb service.” But it’s not so easy being a walking
uterus! Bewildered new moms often observe that they’re still in their

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pajamas at five
P.M
. Within days of delivery, you’ll discover that it takes
all day long to accomplish what your uncomplaining uterus did twenty-
four hours a day for the past nine months.
From your baby’s point of view, being in your arms for twelve hours a
day is a disappointment, if not a rip-off. If he could talk, your infant
would probably state with pouty disdain, “Hey, what’s the big deal? You
used to hold me twenty-four hours a day and feed me every single
second!”
Unfortunately, many parents in our culture have been convinced that
it’s wrong to cuddle their babies so much. They have been misled into
believing that their main job is to teach and educate their newborn.
They treat their young child more like a brain to train than a spirit they
are privileged to nurture. Other cultures consider an infant’s needs
differently. In Bali, babies are never allowed to sleep alone and they
barely leave the arms of an adult for the first hundred and five days! The
parents bury the placenta and nourish the burial spot with daily
offerings of rice and vegetables. On the hundred and fifth day, a holy
ceremony welcomes babies as new members of the human race; up until
that point they still belong to the gods. In this ritual, babies receive their
first sip of water, and an egg is rubbed on their arms and legs to give
them vitality and strength. Only then are their feet finally allowed to
touch Mother Earth.
It’s no coincidence that in cultures like Bali, where colic is virtually
nonexistent, parents give babies much more of a fourth-trimester
experience than we do.