Star Newland: On Birth And Water Babies

Star Newland, of the Sirius Institute, granted us an interview so we could pick her brain about pregnancy, birth and babies. She helps us explore other natural possibilites, like birthing with dolphins in the ocean, extended breastfeeding and what motherhood is really about: being available to our children. The first time I heard about birthing in the oceans with dolphins, I was amazed, the dolphins like to circle the mother, providing their (what I call) magical, calming energy that seems to calm the mother and help with an easier quicker labor. It is not a birth that most of us will get to experience, but Star shows us that dolphin consciousness isn't just for those that will get to birth in the ocean and preparing for parenthood is as simple, or complex, as staying present in this moment. Thank you Star we are grateful for your work with the government, the community and for you personally! Star Newland: The last of my pod mates just left and it’s given me time to go over your website some more, which I’ve got to talk to you about Jean Liedloff and my connection to her work and how it profoundly changed my life…

Ashley: Oh tell me.

Star Newland: Well, I had been given her book a few years before my son came, but I had yet to read it because I had little interest, if any, in having children until I hooked up with the dolphins and found out something else was going on. And so, finally my beautiful son arrived and we were home and one day I started reading her book and just a few pages into it I realized that this is what I’ve been waiting for because now my babe is in arms and I understand how to proceed. And what she did and what I got from her book was validating my own inclinations. However, being one of those ‘40s (1940s) children, all I had was that certain kind of model. It was 21 years ago, so it just saved our life!

Ashley: Yeah?

Star Newland: You can do this and be right. And this totally fit with my inclinations because after meeting the dolphins, I just kind of went...tilt! And went to the pod model, you could say and around that same time another friend had given me a copy of Dr. Spock’s books.

Ashley: Which one?

Star Newland: Oh, I wonder, just one of the regular Dr. Spock books that my mother raised five kids with. But when I read this one part, the part said (and I still remember this after twenty some odd years) it said put the babies in playpens by the age of 6 months lest they get too used to the idea of freedom! And when I saw that I pitched the book across the room, and I said, “that’s what happened!” Listen to that stuff! And of course like everyone else in that generation practically I was put in a playpen lest I get too used to the idea of freedom!

Ashley: Or love from your parents! You can’t have too much of that! Dangerous.

Star Newland: Yes, I had a lot of that. And exactly what I was reading about in the Jean interview about letting babies cry it out. I mean, how many times did we go through that? Just the whole thing of isolation. And in my article, “How to Raise a Dolphin Conscious Child” it was one of the major things that I had to get over. Because like what happened? ! I came here in anticipation of my whole mammal being, in anticipation of that (being with the pod) and I got so completely other (isolation)!

Ashley: Well, I am so glad it came across your path, as I am glad it came across mine. I really relate to just going, “oh yes! This is at the right time!” Thank you Jean!

Star Newland: Well, I am very honored to be in accompaniment to that interview of Jean Liedloff, because really, her work transformed my life and continues to be the underlying basis of what I do and how I perceive my children and the whole idea of letting a child cry, I’m sorry guys but you are so wrong.

Ashley: I know it breaks your heart doesn’t it and the sad thing is it breaks mom’s hearts too, but the sad thing is they just don’t listen to it a lot of times and that’s what’s so incredibly fascinating I guess is the best word, that we’ve given up so much of our own power and we’re just starting to take it back.

Star Newland: We give the system so much power and allow the feeling/body level to be lost. Even when I read articles that said it’s okay to let a kid cry for five minutes a day, by that time my son was almost 2 or something and he hardly ever cried at all, I mean, why would he? So, he was in arms all the time, and actually he suckled until he was the age of 13, by the way.

Ashley: Did he really?

Star Newland: Yes.

Ashley: That’s intense, that’s a long time. I’ve read some stories where it’s been 5 years or 8 years, but 13 is the longest I heard.

Star Newland: Well, we had… You know, I was bottle-fed and so I came up through that whole thing, like most of us did. That’s the thing about the suckle and my work with dolphins and Dr. John Lilly and his autobiography, “The Scientist” where he dedicates a whole chapter to what happened when he was weaned at the age of four and four 1/2. And later on I came across “Nisa”, you know that book about the African lady who was made to wean when her sibling was being born and her whole life was so profoundly affected by the fact that her mom weaned her, to the extent that when that sibling was born, her little brother, her mom gave her the baby and said, “here you take it out into the jungle and bury it somewhere and you can suckle again if you really want it.”

Ashley: Oh my goodness that’s traumatic.

Star Newland: That’s the thing, that reminded me how vitally critical this component is! How we make like it’s hardly anything.

Ashley: It’s pretty amazing how different our society has gotten, and that some people don’t breastfeed at all or don’t have the desire, or think that it’s that important. But we find all ends of the spectrum I think. But let me ask you, I want to focus on two parts that really interest me with your work; one of them is water birth in general. I was reading some on your website about the size of the head and the impact that it has on birth, and that’s one aspect I want to cover and the other aspect is concerned with the dolphins and birthing with the dolphins and then how the dolphins have affected how you see parenting as well. But let’s start with the water birth and the impact that it has on the baby, because I’ve never seen that before.

Star Newland On Water Birth

Star Newland: I can let me tell you a little bit about that and, Dr. Hyson our research director wrote that piece about how water birth affects the brain. Michael Hyson is a neurobiologist so that’s his work.

Ashley: And he works with your Institute as well, correct?

Star Newland: Right. He’s been the research director for 18 years and he helped raise my son. We’re working partners, that’s all we do is work together. We have other relationships outside of work, because that works best. And we work together all day, every day! I can give you my personal take on it because part of the direction our work is taking at the Sirius Institute is to explore and discover who we are as a species, as Aquatic Mammals.

Ashley: Okay.

Star Newland: And what we are interested in is what happens when a child is well gestated and all the appropriate things that we are about, birthed in water and in addition to that allowed to maintain water contact in a substantial way. Kind of like what Igor Charkovsky was working on with the water babies, and the Wasser Baby Institute in Germany that we’re allied with, our sister institute. Recently, for the last few years in particular, it’s the whole idea of what if we, as humans are actually meant to be aquatic mammals, at least some subset of them, and what would they be like, those children who were born into water and then…(lost contact over phone)

Ashley: Sorry about that, lets go back to where we were. So part of your work at the Sirius Institute is…

Star Newland: To explore what the development of our species would be like as Aquatic Mammals because looking at it a very clinical perspective, when we look at what we think we know, what we claim to know about the human species is mostly taken from dead people, the autopsies and the brain slices and things like that. But if every one who was born on land into gravity experiences a certain kind of gravity affect, I call it a kind of concussion birth. We come out from the womb, which is a pressurized environment to gravity quickly and suddenly, then that changes things and certain subtle structures in the brain are lost to us, because they were generated in a buoyant, aquatic environment and they come out and there’s gravity. Those particular structures, and Dr. Hyson could better articulate what they are and how exactly that works, but they are diminished or we lose their capacity entirely. So pretty much what we say about humans is different than what our actual potential is.

Ashley: So, are you saying by ultimately being in the water we can reverse some of that because we are experiencing that non-gravity again?

Star Newland: That buoyancy again. Yes, by being born into the water and having water contact and mobility, because the other part of that is this: it was amazing to me the first time I ever saw water babies moving at birth. I saw a film with Toni Lilly at the Human Dolphin Foundation, because she was interested in water birthing with dolphins in particular, and when I saw the mobility it just resonated something so profound in me that, oh my gosh, we are meant through our design to have mobility from the very get-go!

Ashley: Because it really does look like they are already swimming! Moving around and it doesn’t look uncomfortable for them.

Star Newland: Well, they are completely comfortable and it’s natural because they just came from that. Although by the time they are born there is less room for mobility, but the whole gestational environment is about the buoyancy and having that component. Then if they are born into water and start mobility right away and kept in the water to whatever appropriate degree, then they have a whole different take on it than we did.

Ashley: That’s wonderful. So, did you do this with your own son, were you able too?

Star Newland: My first son he’ll be 21 next week. I was in meditation and prayer one day looking for where and how I could have my baby in the water with the dolphins so I could have a dolphin-conscious child. And then I remember that afternoon I got this message loud and clear,” … if I wanted a dolphin-conscious child, I had to be a dolphin-conscious mother”!

Ashley: Right.

Star Newland: And in that same breath and moment, I saw that my son would be a hospital cesarean birth. And so, that was kind of like the proof in a way, because we did create a dolphin-conscious being, because I had to carry that energy in me to pass it on to him. It was quite a bit more complex than just go to Hawaii, find the dolphins and then give birth. It was a seed of consciousness that the child gets from its environment while being gestated. So, we had an amazing, loving, cesarean experience in the hospital that I’d worked at years earlier.

Ashley: Now tell me about that because I’ve never heard these words together, which I would love to hear: amazing, loving, cesarean section in the hospital. How did you get to a place within you that it was an amazing, loving cesarean because every single woman that I’ve talked to when they say cesarean also says traumatic, not what I wanted. So, tell me about it.

Star Newland: Well, first I was an older mom. Much older and it was my first child and the preparation that was available at the time for me, even with the work that I’d been doing for some time had yet to reach all the way into me. And we knew only a little bit about it in a way, where now it’s all exploded, there is so much more of it now. So what I had to do was go deep inside and focus on creating the outcome that I wanted which was this child, my love child. And he totally was my love child and how could I have the kind of birth, whatever it was because the truth is only a handful of people now or in the future are going to be able to experience that kind of birth. And yet, it’s important for every child to be able to experience at birth, to know that they are loved, wanted, that there are people around them that will help them come in, in a good way. And so my focus went to creating that within myself and in my intention. And to be that dolphin mom, so that I could imbue the environment with that consciousness. It turns out in the beginning I had zero medical care, at all, because I thought that our species has been growing a babies a long time, on our own. Just naturally, and I just had that attitude that “of course I can do that.” But when I did make it back to Vancouver I was in the care of my friend who was my physician, Dr. Peter Grantham. And we went back a long, long way. We had worked on the same floor, he was a physician and I was one of the workers on the floor and we hooked right up at the beginning. And he really liked my work and thought I had some interesting ideas and things, so when it came time for my baby to be born, he was more than delighted to help us have that birth and to participate in it. And when it time came that my baby was in distress, we needed to do a c-section and all, I was secure in turning myself and our outcome into his hands and in who he chose to do it with us.

Ashley: That’s beautiful.

Star Newland: And because I was older and I had carried that dolphin-vibe, the nurses were really nice to me, I was given a private room by the nurses station, and as it turns out somebody paid for it and I still to this day wonder who did it. But it turned out like the precious gift this was to my life and the people around me helped me to sustain that.

Ashley: Well, that’s beautiful.

Star Newland: I hardly have any scar, I recovered very, very quickly, and again I was older! And my sister had a completely different experience even though our brother, a physician flew in for the birth. I was shocked and stunned with what she went through and it’s like what the other women you’ve talked to reported. I know I had to do better, because I had to bring this consciousness to this child.

Star Newland On Dolphin-Consciousness

Ashley: So, tell me about this dolphin-consciousness and how it came to be so important in your life.

Star Newland: Wow, that’s a long story!

Ashley: Okay, first tell me when you say dolphin-consciousness, what do you specifically mean, define that more for us.

Star Newland: I would say the essence of the dolphin-consciousness is unity consciousness. Knowing that we are all part of everything, that we are connected to all of it, whether we are aware of that connection to consciousness, the reality is, we are still connected anyway. One of the things that happened in my own birth that took me quite a while to work out was what I call the myth of separation. Which is what I thought my mom and I underwent. I was on the outside, we were separate and apart. And that was the consensus consciousness too. At that time there were very few people who really understood how long, extensive and deep the inner bonding is between mother and infant. And when I realized that, whether my mom thought we were separate or what, the reality was we were still connected. And when I put that together for myself, I was able to put that together within me, in my life. I was able to be part of it, and when I met the dolphins, physically, directly, for the first time in Florida, they came and showed me that we have much more in common than I had imagined, that we were much more alike than I knew. And it was the beginning of an exploration for me to find out who we are to each other and what is our common bond? What are our common bonds? And even prior to that when I met dolphins at another place in Florida I went and saw them after the show and I had a really strong telepathic experience with them. It took me a while to figure out what had happened, in hindsight I realized they reached into me, into that part where all of life is connected and said basically, we know who you are, we remember and recognize you. And this is a connection. I refer to it like the inside part connecting to the other inside part. The indwelling being, whether it’s a dolphin or a human or tree or an ant or a grasshopper it hardly matters, everything that is alive especially has that indwelling component of life and we’re all part of that life.

Ashley: That does change the way you live doesn’t it when you realize that, or when you open out to that.

Star Newland: Completely, so that to me is the dolphin consciousness. And that life was meant to be more playful and more fun and more light-hearted and above all connected. To ourselves and to our children and up to this moment I’ve had remarkable telepathic report with my first son, even last night I was about to text him something and got sidetracked on the text and he calls. And of course he’d call right when I’m in the midst of texting! It always works that way and we have so many examples of that. But when we allow ourselves to be close and remain close to our children, that’s a large part of what makes a difference. And our extensive experience with the suckling also strengthens that bond and lets the child know. You know part of the thing about the suckling is the stability that the mother offers. Even though our life was pretty different than what I had anticipated, by this time I had learned to be centered with everything, and whatever we were experiencing my son took his cues from me, the primary figure in his life and in his world. To the extent that I was able to flow with it and make the most of all these challenges, he was able to do it and get it that way as well.

Star Newland On Birthing with Dolphins

Ashley: Right, well that makes sense, it really does. So, tell me the first time I read about a dolphin birth I was amazed. It just seemed so powerful honestly in the way that the dolphins would be interacting with the mother who was giving birth and from what I read, it was like they would surround the mother and they did that anyways with pregnant women a lot, but that the mother really feels a calmness from them, or within herself because of them surrounding her. Have you seen or been involved with humans birthing with dolphins?

Star Newland: The closest I’ve personally been to a dolphin birth, or an accompanied birth as we call it, was with my second son who was born on the beach over on the east side of the island. Our plan was fully operational to go out into the ocean because there were hundreds of dolphins out there waiting for us; however my son had other plans right from the beginning. He decided to come out foot first as a footling birth at an isolated black sand beach miles away from anybody or anything. Fortunately a very good friend who was an experienced delivery room nurse was there with me and she knew how to turn a footling birth so that the baby could come out just fine. Had I been in the usual hands, we would have been (cesarean) sectioned automatically because my first child was a sectioned birth. I had all kinds of so-called alleged high-risk factors coming into the second gestation, but I knew better and I trusted my process completely and at the same time I was really present, moment-to-moment for months. I was told I would only know at the last minute how and where the birth would take place and I surrendered it. I knew that my intention to have the highest, best outcome for the birth was the operating factor and that I was willing to yield any expectations, pictures or anything so that at the least my baby would be fine and I would be fine. And then a few weeks before the birth, I was at the beach, I was out swimming with the dolphins shortly before that and I came onto the beach and I got this kind of ticker-tape information that said that my baby would be born early, which I knew and my baby would be born mid-August, which was certainly earlier than I was thinking! Then, it said August 18th at the beach. And I thought, “Wow”! I went home and wrote it and told Dr. Hyson and others and then I kind of forgot about it and went on with my life. Then the morning of August 18th I started experiencing the birthing pulses, as I call them. I called my friend Barbara who came over, checked me out and said, “It looks like you’re good to go.” She went back home to get her boogie board and the stuff she would need to do a birth on the beach and out in the ocean. She came back and we drove down to the beach, all the time singing in the car. Dr. Michele Odent always had the pregnant women singing. He’s a French Physician who I reconnected with in England a few years ago when I was traveling and had first met when I interviewed him back in 1985 in Vancouver. By now the birthing pulses were kind of getting there and we walked across the road and I’m looking down at this cliff that I have to go down to make it to the ocean and I’m thinking, “Geez guys, I had to stay present so much but now I’m here at the top of the cliff wondering how I’m going to make it down there.” And looking for ways to make it, and all that time I’d spent getting down, looking for easier ways to get down but the only way to get down was to walk. And so praying, thinking what are my choices? I can give birth on the path, I can get in the car and go to the hospital or I can somehow find a way to make it down the cliff right now because that’s what I wanted most of all. And at that moment I knew there were hundreds of dolphins out there and suddenly I felt this energetic release and part of me jumped off the cliff and leapt into the water to be with the dolphins. My being joined them and at that moment all my energy shifted and I kind of floated down the cliff. And it was so easy. I sat down in the baby’s pond and did some vocalizations and at some point after someone saw a foot and a sac hanging out of me. And they said, “oh, there’s a foot there”! We better get her out of there, get her onto the beach and help her.” Humans have to be born head first into water, but dolphins have to come out tail first. Barbara opened the sack and turned my baby and got him out in minutes so for me it was actually quite an easy delivery, because it happened relatively quickly, within 15-20 minutes. And he was perfectly fine, although he was a little bit blue, which babies are when they come out foot first, they just are. But a beautiful wave came up and touched him underneath his back while Dr. Hyson was holding him. He took his first breath and pinked up and he was fine.

Ashley: Oh that’s wonderful.

Star Newland: And we left his umbilical chord alone until it stopped and my placenta delivered and so this was a completion from my first birth where it was all done to me and for me. Afterwards I just woke up from the anesthetic and saw my baby. But this way I was alert and aware and present for the whole thing and there was my baby! And there was the umbilicus and there was the placenta, which we put into the water and made an offering to the sea.

Ashley: That’s beautiful and what a difference between your two births. In location, in experience and in how it went.

Star Newland: Although I like to feel that what mattered for both of my children that my intention was very high and for the highest best outcome for all. And that the dolphin consciousness that I’d integrated even more so at this time, because it was 5 years later, was enough to help me create the kind of after-effect, if you will, for these children. I wanted them to have something completely other than what I’d had. To take the best of what my parents did for me with great love and apply the new information that we had, and advance that whole thing. And we did, I’m pretty pleased with all that!

Ashley: Good! It sounds like it, which is a great gift. So what is it that you would really like mothers reading this to know?

What Star Newland Really Wants You to Know!

Star Newland: I’d say the first thing is to trust ourselves most. Trust ourselves and make strong connections internally to develop that trust and access it. I’d had a few years preparation before my son was born because I’d shifted from one life to another and I had to start really going deep inside for the first time and getting what that was about. It was all new to me; I was an externally driven kind of human being like many people at the time. So, all I knew was to listen to my doctor or listen to somebody who allegedly knew more than me. But after connecting with the dolphins I realized I’d been getting good information inside all this time, I had little context in which to understand it or value it or appreciate it. But once I started growing up, even though I was older, I realized I could trust my internal mechanisms to guide me and that was the whole process of staying in the moment. Because I knew this moment was coming and I needed to be prepared for that, and that information, or that resource or whatever would be available for me. It was tremendously important because it also stopped the chatter of questioning and doubting and anxiety and fears, that stuff that people lay on us, or that is simply all around us, in the environment. It’s just: stay present, be tuned in and this is going to work just fine, even though it looks very different. Even though 4 years ago or 6 months ago I could hardly imagine myself in the situation. The fact is, I’m here and I can count on myself and I’m going for it! Because that meant I would be okay whatever was going on, I felt that sense that I would be okay whatever was going on because I can count on that part, In my business world and my TV producer life I had a very full and active life. I had a few years transition before my son came when I was told to be still! Whenever I wanted to go out and be the doer again, I would get knocked back, “be still, resonate, let it come to you and just be still.” And it turns out that was all the timing I’d needed to get tuned in, to get in touch with and to get prepared for when my child was in arms suckling. It’s hard to imagine, I’d had two preconceptions that were preparing me for when he finally came. And each of those conceptions was to help clear certain things, issues that I still had so that I would be fully ready for the birth. And I would have had little way of anticipating that I would need to be still for any length of time because my mom gave me a bottle, every 4 hours or whatever. When I read Joseph Chilton Pearce talking about how the average newborn would suckle up to 53 times a day for the first several weeks, it was a complete shock to me! I was like “What?!” That means being a mom is a full time job! And then I had to be really clear and I had to make a commitment, that was after my release of the first pregnancy. I had to make a complete commitment that this was the most vital, important component of my life. That I would turn it all over to being available. And the whole thing about why we suckled as long as we did is because I realized through what Pearce said, and others, that truly it’s the child that knows when and how long. And for me to make an imposition because of what other people say, or whatever, I felt like I really wanted to give my child the complete choice. So when he was ready, it’s hardly like we talked about it or anything, ever, but when he wanted to come in and have a little bit of suckle when he got up or just before he went to sleep at night, that’s what I was there for. That was my reason for reorganizing my whole world to be available as the mom. It meant that I had a much more simplified life. There was lots that we did without, and it’s hardly like this is the appropriate way for moms everywhere to go to, but for us, it was. And in the way of the pod, what one gets, we all get. I felt too for our pod consciousness, for our group collective consciousness as long as at least one child had the full-on program because there are other things that have to do with the wiring of the left and the right brain syncing and things like that that Joseph Pearce talks about. I wanted my child to have whatever suckling was really about for us as human being mammals.

Ashley: That’s great. What a great gift to have given them, the gift of just being available and not controlling is just the biggest lesson I think we can learn as parents, or anybody on the planet!

Star Newland: We say to let a child lead the way that means we must be willing to follow. If he’d stopped, that would have been alright because I’d known friends that their kids had just stopped at 2 years or less than that. So, it’s important to recognize that every child and their experience is unique and to feel good about whatever you’ve created because ultimately I’ve learned that that’s more important than what it is that happened, because we were happy and had come to unity with and accepted the experience that we had. Because again the child takes it’s lead from the mom and the environment, but especially from the mom.

Ashley: And the healing that can occur from what you experienced in your own childhood and how we parent is… well, I think there is a lot of healing that goes on as a parent when you make different choices or choices that you need for your spirit to be filled up you know?

Star Newland: Yes, and that’s why I feel that I waited till I my first child came because I had these issues to clear. A poem came 15-20 years before my son was born that started, “bright lights glaring, bare bottom spanked, ‘breathe he commanded’” and that’s how I came into the world. And this is before I knew anything about anything. And the rest of the poem had to do with performance and having to. And I must have had a pretty traumatized birth because my body is still dealing with the aftermath of that as I bring parts of my energetic being back to life again. It was shut down from trauma right at the very beginning. So, “bright lights glaring” my vision changed right at birth along with the silver nitrate that they put in us all. “Bare bottom spanked”, so there was shock to my nervous system and spine in particular which was traumatized. And scenes like this to which people were born, and we have little idea if any that it happened and then we live our life and wonder why the right side is limp or something or our visions impacted or we have fear of intimacy, all these different, subtle things that we accept as the human condition, but it’s hardly the natural human condition.

Ashley: Exactly, one of the things you were talking about was a pod community and when you told me that one of the things it reminded me of was what Jean Liedloff said about the community and my idea about making, even if you’re not near the water, making your own pod of people, of community around you so that you have that same pod ness! I don’t know how else to say it!

Star Newland: Yes, exactly. You know when people come and Jean Liedloff was an immense influence right at the beginning of my son’s life as I started to read her book with my son in arms, I was like, “Yes, Yes! I knew!” Even though I’d yet to ever see it or hear of it or thought it, I just knew so much that what she has to say is so important. I just said, okay, this is our path because this resonates with me. This is what I instinctively want, my child in my arms rather than isolated, alone in a crib. I was known for breaking jail! I got out of jail lots of times! I would climb over the crib and taught my friends how to climb out of the crib! The jailbreak, the great escape! And the whole fact of having the child in our arms, why else would we have children except to be with them? And at the heart of the pod project when there are children, in the pod home, pod homes are for all ages and configurations, but when there are children in the pod home, there are many to hold that child because that child gains comfort and security and well-being in the world by being in arms and being on the breast. That’s what a mammal is, mammary glands. It’s matrix, it’s material, it’s mama. All these words come from the root of it all and the pod helps us to have that connectivity and it’s followed by appropriate and sufficient touch, so that the children have enough touch in their early life and they cease to be targets for people who had other and who are looking to do things to people. It diminishes the epidemic that we have of sexual molestation and child abuse, when we interact appropriately. Because energetically a child who is raised in this way has their energies flowing in a healthy way, so there are zero energetic attractions for someone whose energy is stuck in the genitals and who is looking for someone else energetically whose energy is stuck there. And then they find each other, but when a child is clear and centered and the energy is flowing that other kind of person would have to look somewhere else because there is a neutral shield. They would zero even feel about getting in, they would recognize that kid’s okay! This is really important for our children and for the grown ups to grow up having enough touch, enough healthy touch.

Ashley: I agree, I think it’s incredibly important. Incredibly important. And I would love to be updated to know what’s going on with the pod! I will keep looking on your website.

Star Newland: And call also because so much of what we do has to make it on the website, we are busy working out the models. And where we go with the dolphins when women come over to see us before the birth, before pregnancy even is we like to integrate them into the life of the pod, on the land because when a child comes in knowing that the mom and dad have a support system, that there are people around them who care and are good to them, then that child is getting all those good vibes inside, in the womb. And it makes it more delighted to want to be born, “ . . . oh it was so fun inside mom! And it feels so good when I hear that person’s voice! They touched my mom and there’s food for me!” Well, that child is going to want to be born, and it facilitates an easier natural birth, which then drops the rate of trauma birth and all that. And you start out life with a much better limbic imprint. As your limbic imprint goes, your whole life goes! That’s why we work at a legislative level, and with the county administration to get proclamations for a gentle birth and gentle birthday month, May. And that’s why we go out and educate and bring awareness to people that we have choices and there are some really good choices that will make all the difference in the world.

Ashley: And that is what I just love that the internet is just so amazing, when I started my website, I just found so many amazing ideas about how people are doing it differently and not just taking the “normal” for necessarily the “natural” and taking the opportunities we really do have, it’s just incredible. And if we keep the blinders on, there is so much we can miss. So, I really do appreciate you giving us your time and sharing your experience with us Star. Thank you so much.

Star Newland: It’s a pleasure. I am so glad to share it and to be in such good company on your website.

Ashley: I think that will wrap us up unless there is something that you wanted to cover that we didn’t cover.

Star Newland: Just give me a moment… one last thing. My second son had a dolphin twin born just minutes before him. You know that really covers the highlights. The main thing is to trust ourselves more. Just trust ourselves!

More about Star Newland can be found at www.planetpuna.com To Return to from Star Newland to Interview Main Page