Who co-founded the josephites?

Who is the important to the US?

Ansel Adams- Photographer whose natural landscapes of the West are also astatement about the importance of the preservation of thewildness.Samuel Adams- Bostonian American Revolutionary War leader, Political organizer, and journalist who helped to organize the Sons of Liberty and the Massachusetts Committee of Correspondence. - Associated with the Boston Massacre and the Boston Tea Party.- Member of the Continental Congress and signer of theDeclaration of Independence.Jane Addams- Progressive Era reformer in the social settlement house Movement.- Founder of Hull House, a Chicago settlement house.- Cofounder and first president of Women's International League for Peace and Freedom.- Corecipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (1931).- Involved in organizing of the NAACP.Susan B. Anthony- Women's rights leader from 1851 until her death in 1906. - Most active for women's suffrage, but also worked forwomen's property rights and rights of married women.Yasir Arafat- Leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) who met with President Clinton and Israeli leader Yitzhak Rabin in 1993to achieve steps toward peace in the Middle East.Klaus Barbie- Nazi war criminal who was apprehended after World War II and tried for his wartime brutality towards Jews. - Known as the "Butcher of Lyons". (France)John Brown- Extreme abolitionist who believed in use of violence to promote his cause. - Became nationally known after his antislavery group killed proslavery settlers at the Pottawatomie Creek Massacre.- His raid against a federal arsenal at Harper's Ferry led to his trial and execution.- Considered a martyr by some antislavery groups and was immortalized by Ralph Waldo Emerson in John Brown's Body.William Jennings Bryan- Unsuccessful Democratic presidential candidate in 1896 and 1900. - Populist who supported farmers and free silver.- Orator, religious fundamentalist (Scopes Trial), and anti-imperialist.John C. Cathoun- Outspoken southern leader and advocate of states' rights. - Favored nullification and the extension of slavery into the territories.- Vice President under Presidents John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson; resigned over nullification issue.- Secretary of state under President Tyler; successfully pressed for Texas annexation; opposed Mexican War and California statehood.Andrew Carnegie- Industrial and philanthropist of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. - Built Carnegie Steel Company (later part of U.S. Steel).Willa Cather- Writer of stories and novels about the struggle and the strength of the pioneers settling the frontier. - Won 1922 Pulitzer Prize for One Of Ours.- Best known for O Pioneers! (1913), My Antonia (1918), and Death Comes to the Archbishop (1927).Cesar Chavez- Latino leader of California farm workers from 1962 until his death in 1933. - Organized the United Farm Workers (UFW) to help migrant farm workers gain better pay and working conditions.Winston Churchill- Prime minister of Great Britain during World war II. Father Charles Coughlin- Roman Catholic priest who his weekly radio program to attack President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his New Deal Programs. - Lost popularity because of his profascist, anti-Semetic views; ordered by the Roman Catholic in 1942 to stop his political actions.Eugene V. Debs- Union organizer and socialist presidential candidate in every election from the 1890s until World War I. Dorothea Dix- Nineteenth- century Massachusetts socialist reformer who revolutionized mental health reform. - Superintendent of U.S. Army nurses in Civil War.Stephen Douglas- Illinois Senator and excellent public speaker. - His Kansas-Nebraska Act included his idea of popular sovereignty, which increased sectional tension.- Lincoln-Douglas debates in Illinois race for Senate made Lincoln nationally known.- Candidate for Northern faction of Democratic party in 1860 election.W.E.B. Du Bois- African American civil rights leader, historian, writer, sociologist. - Cofounder of the Niagara Movement for racial equality and of the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People).- A leading figure of the Harlem Renaissance.- Published the poetry and stories of black writers in "The Crisis", publication of the NAACP.- Disagreed with views of Booker T. Washington and Marcus Garvey as to how African Americans should go about securing equal rights.John Foster Dulles- Secretary of state under President Dwight Eisenhower. - Made famous the concept of brinkmanship, a foreign policy that brought the United States just to brink of war.Adolf Eichmann- Nazi war criminal. - Captured in Argentina after World War II.- Tried and executed in Israel for the deaths of millions of Jews during World War II.Duke Ellington- Songwriter, band leader, jazz composer, pianist, and a leading figure of the Harlem Renaissance. - Helped popularize American music around the world.- Famous songs include "Take The A Train", "Mood Indigo", and "Don't Get Around Much Anymore."Medgar Evers- African American activist and NAACP field secretary. - Murdered in Mississippi in 1963 by a sniper outside his house.F. Scott Fitzgerald- Novelist whose works reflects climate of the "roaring twenties". - Novels include "The great Gatsby", "The Side of Paradise", and "Tender is the Night."Henry Ford- Industrialist who headed Ford Motor Company. - His innovative production methods reduced the cost of producing cars, making it possible for the average person to own an automobile.Benjamin Franklin- Philadelphia statesman, diplomat, scientist, writer in revolutionary period. - Drafted the 1754 Albany Plan of Union.- Member of Second Continental congress; served on committee to write the Declaration of Independence, which he signed.- Helped persuade France to sign the 1778 Treaty Of Alliance against England.- Helped negotiate the Treaty of Paris of 1783, ending American Revolution.- Influential Pennsylvania delegate to the Constitutional Convention.Sigmund Frued- Austrian psychiatrist who developed psychoanalysis. - Theories emphasized the importance of sexual freedom; influenced attitudes of the 1920s.Marcus Garvey- African American nationalist leader who advocated pride and self-help as a means of empowerment. - Founder of the Universal Negro Improvement Association, a nationalist and separatist group that wanted a separate black economy and urged African Americans to emigrate to Africa.Samuel Gompers- Organizer and president of American Federation of Labor, a craft union for skilled workers. - Stressed "bread and butter" issues such as wages and hours.Alexander Hamilton- New York delegate at Constitutional Convention who worked for a strong central government. - Wrote 51 of "The Federalist Papers" in support of ratification of the Constitution.- First secretary of the treasury: promoted national economic development.William Randolph Hearst- Newspaper publisher whose style of journalism became known as yellow journalism. - Helped create public pressure for Spanish-American War.Ernest Hemingway- Novelist whose writings expressed conflict and concern created by changing American values. - 1954 Nobel Prize for Literature winner.Patrick Henry- Leader in the American Revolution in Virginia. - As a member of Virginia House of Burgesses, introduced resolutions opposing the Stamp Act.- Member of Continental Congress; supporter of independence.- Opposed Constitution because of belief that it gave too much power to the federal government.- Led movement for addition of the Bill of Rights to the Constitution.Alger Hiss- Former State Department official investigated as a possible Communist spy by the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) - Convicted of perjury in 1950.- Prosecution by Richard Nixon made Nixon a national figure early in his career.Langston Hughes- Poet, playwright, and novelist who wrote about the African American experience, especially that of the poor and working class. - A leading figure of the Harlem Renaissance.Chiang Kai-shek- Attorney general (1961-1963) and brother of President John F. Kennedy. - Assassinated in June 1968.Martin Luther King Jr.- Civil rights leader who advocated civil disobedience and nonviolent demonstrations as methods for achieving change.- Founded Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1957.- Led bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama.- Led march from Selma to Montgomery for voting rights.- Gave "I have A Dream" speech in Washington D.C.- Won Nobel Peace Prize.- Assassinated in 1968.Henry Kissinger- secretary of state under President Nixon and Ford. - Deeply involved in foreign policy in Vietnam, China, the soviet Union and the Middle east.Robert La Follette- Governor of Wisconsin whose program, the "Wisconsin Idea", became the model for progressive reform. - Served as United States Senator and Progressive leader.- Ran for President as the Progressive party candidate in 1924.Meriwether Lewis and William Clark- Explorers who led the 1804-1806 expedition to survey lands included in the Louisiana Purchase. - Documented the land, plants, animals, and other natural resources from Missouri to Oregon in maps, diaries, and drawings.Sinclair Lewis- Novelist whose work Main Street attacked middle class values. - First American to win Nobel Prize for Literature (1930).John Locke- British Enlightenment writer whose ideas influenced the Declaration of Independence, state constitutions, and the United States Constitution. - Believed that people are born free with certain natural rights including the right to life, liberty, and property.Henry Cabot Lodge- Massachusetts Republican senator whose support of the American imperialism and of a powerful navy strongly influenced Theodore Roosevelt. - As chairman of Senate Foreign Relations Committee and Senate Majority and entry of the United States into the League of Nations.- Served as a U.S. representative to Washington Conference.Huey Long- Populist governor of Louisiana and U.S. senator. - Proposed that income and inheritance taxes on the wealthy be used to give each American a $2,500 income, a car and a college education.- Planned to challenge FDR for President, but was assassinated in 1935.Douglas MacArthur- Led U.S. troops in the Pacific in World War II. - Commander of U.S. occupation forces in Japan after World War II.- Relieved of command by Truman after publicly disagreeing with him about the conduct of the Korean War.Malcolm X- Leader of the 1960s Black Power movement. - Assassinated in 1965.George C. Marshall- Army chief of staff during World War II and Secretary of state under President Truman. - Promoted the Marshall Plan, which assisted the economic recovery of Europe after World War II.John Marshall- Chief Justice of the Untied States (!801-1835) - Established prestige of the Supreme Court and strengthened power of federal government in cases such as Marbury v. Madison, McCulloch v. Maryland, and Gibbons v. Ogden.- First stated the right of judicial review in Marbury v. Madison (1803)Cotton Mather- New England Puritan associated with the concept of the Puritan work ethic (meaning that hard work is its own reward) and an appreciation of thrift and industry. - Supported the Salem witch trials.Joseph R. McCarthy- Republican Senator of the late 1940s and early 1950s who led a campaign to root out suspected Communists in American life. - The term McCarthyism came to be associated with an era of government investigation of the private lives of many in public service and in the entertainment industry.Baron de Montesquieu- French Enlightenment philosopher who admired the British system of republican government. - Influence is seen in separation of powers and in the checks and balances provisions in the Constitution.John Muir- Naturalist, conservationist, and writer who influenced President Theodore Roosevelt to protect more land. - Founder of the Sierra Club.Frank Norris- Naturalist writer whose 1901 novel, "The Octopus", told of the struggle between railroad and California wheat growers. Robert Oppenheimer- Physicist who led the American effort to build the first atomic bomb in the 1940s. Thomas Plaine- English-born writer and political philosopher whose influential pamphlet "Common sense" (1776) pressed for independence from Great Britain. Rosa Parks- African American civil rights activist. - Her refusal, in 1955, to give up her seat to a white person led to the Montgomery, Alabama, bus boycott and helped to launch the civil rights movement.Frances Perkins- Social reformer and political leader. - Named secretary of labor under President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933, becoming the first woman to serve a cabinet position.H. Ross Perot- Third-party candidate and billionaire businessman who challenged George Bush and Bill Clinton for the presidency in 1992 with new ideas about balancing the federal budget and about other economic issues. Matthew Perry- Led 1853-1854 naval mission to open Japan to world trade. - Negotiated Treaty of Kanagawa, which gave the United States trading rights with Japan.Gifford Pinchot- Conservationist and politician who led the Division of Forestry of the Department of agriculture under President Theodore Roosevelt. Joseph Pulitzer- Publisher of the "New York Journal", whose "yellow journalism" in a circulation war with William Randolph Hearst helped provoke the Spanish American War. Yitzhak Rabin- Prime minister of Israel who signed a peace agreement with PLO leader Yasir Arafat in 1933 as a result of President Clinton's efforts. - Assassinated in 1995.Jacob Riis- Journalist, photographer, and social reformer of the Progressive Era. - Documented life in New York's tenements in his 1890 book, "How The Other Half lives."- Used writings and photographs to show the need for better housing for the poor.Jackie Robinson- Professional baseball player. - Became the First African American to play in major league baseball when he joined the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947.John D. Rockefeller- Industrialist and philanthropist. - Founder of the Standard Oil Company.Nelson A. Rockefeller- Former governor of New York who was appointed Vice President by President Gerald Ford in 1974. - Only nonelected Vice President to serve with a nonelected President.Eleanor Roosevelt- Political activist and First Lady. - Early and long-time activist for rights for African Americans and women during the New Deals as First Lady and as political activist on her own.- Played a key role in creation of United Nations Declaration on Human Rights (1948) and heading the UN Commission on Human Rights (1961).- Chaired the Presidential Commission on the Status of Women during the Kennedy Administration.Julius and Ethel Rosenberg- Convicted and executed for treason in 1953 during the era of McCarthyism. - Possible innocence is still debated.Jean-Jacques Rousseau- French Enlightenment philosopher. - Influenced the Declaration of Independence with his arguments in support of government by the consent of the governed.Sacajawea- Native American guide for part of the Lewis and Clark expedition. - Honored in 2000 with her image on a dollar coin.Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti- Italian immigrants and anarchists executed for armed robbery and murder at the height of the antiradical, anti-immigrant feelings of the 1920s.- Cleared by the Massachusetts governor in 1977, some 50 years later.Margaret Sanger-Pioneering advocate of birth control. - Organized first American birth control conference in 1921.- Founder of a birth-control lobbying group that became Planned Parenthood in 1942.Upton Sinclar- Muckraking journalist of the Progressive Era. - Influenced the passage of the 1906 Meat Inspection act with his novel "The Jungle", which deals with the exploitation of the poor and the factory conditions that led to contaminated meat.Alfred E. Smith- Reform governor of New York and first Catholic to run for President. - Lost to Hoover in the 1928 election, largely because voters did not want a Catholic President and because Smith favored repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment.- Right-wing conservative Democrat who helped organized American Liberty League (1934) and opposed New Deal.Bessie Smith- Harlem renaissance blues singer known as the "Empress of the Blues". - Recorded with prominent jazz musicians, such as Louis Armstrong and Benny Goodman.Elizabeth Cady Stanton- Leading crusader for women's rights; also for abolition and temperance. - Began women's rights movement with Seneca Falls Convention in New York 1848.- Wrote Declaration of Sentiments (1848).- With Susan B. Anthony, cofounded the National woman Suffrage Association and coedited "Revolution", a woman's rights journal.Lincoln Steffens- Muckraking journalist, editor, and reformer. - Wrote about corruption in government and business in his 1906 novel, "The Shame of the Cities."John Steinbeck- Author whose novels often deal with problems of the working class during the Great Depression. - "The Grapes of Wraith" (Pulitzer Prize, 1939) describes the effect of the drought that created the Dust Bowl on a group of farmers forced to leave Oklahoma and work as migrant laborers in California.Ida Tarbell- Muckraking journalist of the Progressive Era. - Her History of Standard Oil Company exposed Rockefeller's unfair and often ruthless business practices.Norman Thomas- Political leader, minister, pacifist who ran six times as Socialist party candidate for President. - Supporter of moderate social reform, strongly anticommunist.- Helped organize the American Civil Liberties Union and urged nuclear disarmament.Dr. Francis Townsend- Opponent of the New Deal. - Promoted a financially impossible plan to provide government pensions for the elderly.Mark Twain- author and humorist of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, famous, in part, for his homespun stories about life along the Mississippi River. - Mark Twain was the pen name of Samuel L. Clemens.Voltaire- French Enlightenment philosopher who praised British institutions and rights. - Influenced framers of the Constitution.- Wrote against religious intolerance and persecution.Earl Warren- Chief Justice of the Supreme Court (1953-1969) - Landmark cases such as Brown v. Board of Education and Miranda v. Arizona marked his tenure.Booker T. Washington- African American educator, author, and leader. - Founded Tuskegee Institute in 1881.- Author of Up From Slavery.- Urged vocational education and self-improvement rather than confrontation as the way for African Americans to gain racial equality.Ida Wells-Barnett- African American journalist, suffragist, and reformer. - Launched a national crusade against lynching in the 1890s.- Cofounder of the NAACP and of the National Association of Colored Women.Edith Wharton- 1920s novelist who expressed concern about old versus new values in books such as "The Age of Innocence" (1921). Mao Zedong- Leader of the communist Chinese government from 1949 until his death in 1976. - Met with President Nixon on Nixon's historic trip to China in 1972.John Peter Zenger- German immigrant, printer and journalist. - Tried for criminal libel for criticizing New York governor in his paper, jury found him not guilty on the grounds that he had printed the truth.- His case was an early step in establishing freedom of the press.

Do your thoughts affect your baby?

One assumes you are talking about your unborn child. There is no data to indicate that thoughts, either positive or negative, have any effect whatsoever on the unborn child.== == Over the past two decades the work of Bruce Lipton, (www.brucelipton.com/ ) and others in the fields of Cellular Biology and Quantum Physics have proven otherwise. Here is an excellent article from Mothering Magazine:See www.mothering.com for articles and discussion boards on pregnancy. http://www.mothering.com/articles/pregnancy_birth/birth_preparation/womb.htmlThe Womb - Your Child's First SchoolHow to provide a prenatal environment that nurtures your growing baby.Issue 132, September/October 2005 By Thomas R. Verny with Pamela WeintraubFrom Tomorrow's Baby by Thomas R. Verny, MD, with Pamela Weintraub. Copyright © 2002 by Thomas R. Verny and Pamela Weintraub. Reprinted by permission of Simon & Schuster, Inc., New York. Where do we first experience the nascent emotions of love, rejection, anxiety, and joy? In the first school we ever attend-in our mother's womb. Naturally, the student brings into this situation certain genetic endowments: intelligence, talents, and preferences. However, the teacher's personality exerts a powerful influence on the result. Is she interested, patient, and knowledgeable? Does she spend time with the student? Does she like him, love him? Does she enjoy teaching? Is she happy, sad, or distracted? Is the classroom quiet or noisy, too hot or too cold, a place of calm and tranquility or a cauldron of stress? Numerous lines of evidence and hundreds of research studies have convinced me that it makes a difference whether we are conceived in love or in hate, anxiety or violence. It makes a difference whether the mother desires to be pregnant and wants to have a child or whether that child is unwanted. It makes a difference whether or not the mother feels supported by family and friends, is free of addictions, lives in a stable, stress-free environment, and receives good prenatal care. All these things matter enormously, not so much by themselves but as part of the ongoing education of the unborn child. Nurturers and ManagersHaving a baby is, for most people, an act of faith. It represents a belief in a better tomorrow, not just for themselves but for the world. But unless we actively improve our understanding and treatment of the unborn baby and the young child, that faith will go unrewarded because we may blindly pass on to our children the neurotic parenting we ourselves may have received. One key to parenting is flexibility. Those who can adapt to their baby's wants and needs will be nurturing and responsive. Those who cannot change their lives to accommodate the child-who expect the baby to adapt to them instead of the other way around-may be too rigid and uninvolved to parent well. These days that task is harder than ever, given the frequent necessity for both parents in a family to work. As parents who work, we delegate responsibilities-including the care of our children and our homes. To keep our lives afloat, to juggle all the elements, we tend to become as managerial in our private lives as we are in our jobs. It is during pregnancy that parents-those who work as well as those who don't-must create a balance for living. I urge both partners to examine their commitments and to create a plan for increasing their time away from work so they can spend more time at home with the baby. Cleaning Out the CobwebsWill a child's psychological and physical development be affected by the emotional makeup of the parents? To those in touch with modern research (not to mention personal history), the question seems rhetorical, the answer as clear as day. Still, it bears repeating: Findings in the peer-reviewed literature over the course of decades establish, beyond any doubt, that parents have overwhelming influence on the mental and physical attributes of the children they raise. Given that fact, it is the responsibility of every expectant parent to clean out the cobwebs of the psyche by airing differences with partners and resolving inner conflicts before the new baby arrives. This "psychic cleansing" has been used to therapeutic advantage by Candace Fields Whitridge, a certified nurse-midwife who cofounded the Mountain Clinic, an innovative women's health center in the rural mountains of Trinity County, California. "With our growing knowledge of the consciousness of the unborn child, we have an unprecedented opportunity and responsibility to improve the way we deliver prenatal care and support women and families at birth," she says. "To enhance the physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being of birth, we need to expand our attitudes and the art of our care, as well as fine-tune our technical and intuitive skills." One of the most powerful techniques for improving the outcome of delivery, Whitridge found, was a formal "cobweb-cleaning session" at 36 weeks gestation with the woman and her mate, or the person who would be providing primary support to her at the birth: "This came about as the result of an auspicious occurrence in my examination room one day. A very loving couple were nearing their delivery date. They had been married many years before deciding to have a child and were excited about being parents. However, the husband was acting in a peculiar manner that day and in the course of the conversation I jokingly asked him, 'Is there anything Joan might do in labor that would bother you?' He didn't answer for a minute and then in a soft but serious voice said, -Yes . . . if she was a wimp.' "His wife looked dumbstruck. 'Go on,' I said. 'What does the word wimp mean to you?' Slowly but steadily he replied, 'I don't think that I have ever really told my wife how much I depend on her. She is the pillar in our family, and over the years I have come to rely on her constant strength. I have been talking to my male friends, and they have told me how women change in labor, how vulnerable they are and how heavily they lean on the man.' He paused. 'I am afraid that I will not measure up when the clutch is on, that I will fail my wife when she needs me most.' "His wife's eyes never left his face as he painfully confessed his concerns. She smiled and gently replied, 'I had no idea you valued those traits in me to such an extent. How wonderful to hear that. I like being strong and dependable. But I have been talking to my friends. They have said, "Joan, labor is a primal experience. It's powerful, intense, and it is best to just surrender to the forces and go where it takes you." The idea of that is right somehow, and it excites me.' "Let's make a deal. I am not afraid, and I want to fully experience this. The only thing I will need from you is your presence, your love, and just don't freak out.' They laughed and shook on it. "Her birth was incredible. For a woman who was normally always in charge, she just let go. Her labor was earthy, noisy, wild, sensual, and short. Her husband watched her in frank adoration and kept his end of the deal. In addition to receiving a beautiful daughter, this birth dramatically changed each of their lives and their relationship forever. "Had these concerns not come up and been worked through during pregnancy, this birth could have gone quite differently. A probable scenario: she would have started carrying on, moaning and wailing and throwing herself all over the room (which she in fact did). He would have freaked out: '&tilde;Somebody do something. There's something clearly wrong. She never acts this way.' She would have noticed that he was freaking out and in her inimitable style would have 'pulled it together.' Her cervix would have shut down at 6 centimeters, and she would eventually have had a cesarean. To explain this, we call it failure to progress, when in actuality it is often just failure to take out the garbage."1 In our lifetime we accumulate a lot of garbage: emotional baggage full of toxic thoughts, self-limiting and damaging notions, and negative scripts. The more aware we are of these, the more we own our own problem areas, the less likely we are to pollute our children with our mental poison. By the same token, the more empathic, caring, and nurturing we are, the more we instill in our progeny, from conception on, feelings of self-worth, trust, and love. Prenatal DialogueHow are maternal emotions and thoughts communicated to the unborn child? The channels of communication are various. Right from the moment of conception, the unborn child has a dialogue with the mother and, through her, the outside world. When all the channels are active, the baby receives the full message; it's like stereophonic sound. This umbilical dialogue takes place across three channels: * Channel 1: Molecular Communication Maternal molecules of emotion, including stress hormones such as adrenaline and noradrenaline, neurohormones, and sex hormones, reach the unborn child through the umbilical cord and placenta. In this sense, the unborn child is as much part of the mother's body as her heart or liver. * Channel 2: Sensory Communication When a pregnant mother strokes her stomach, talks, sings, walks, or runs, she is communicating with her baby through the baby's senses. Newborns "speak" to their mothers through crying, and mothers can soon decipher the meaning of their cries. The sound of "Good morning, Mom, I'm awake" is very different from "I have an awful pain in my tummy." Similarly, the unborn child can communicate through kicking. For example, when she listens to music she likes, she will kick energetically but gently. Expose her to the loud, shrill noises of pneumatic drills or a rock concert, and the baby will become progressively more agitated, subjecting the mother to a series of painful kicks. Obviously, some mothers, depending on their own upbringing or circumstances, are better attuned to this kind of communication than others. If they are depressed, anxious, exposed to violence, or high on drugs or alcohol, mothers are unlikely to be good listeners or good senders of positive messages. * Channel 3: Intuitive Communication I'm sure you have experienced this many times: You stand in a room speaking to someone. Suddenly, you have the urge to turn around. As you do, you meet the eyes of the person who has been looking at you. Or you have probably read or heard of cases of twins who, though they may live thousands of miles apart, are able to sense when one or the other of them is seriously ill or in trouble. These exchanges occur between people who are neither connected to each other's blood circulation nor touching or talking. They happen frequently between individuals who are closely bound to each other emotionally. One might say that such people are on the same wavelength. Can you think of any two beings more connected than a mother and her unborn child? Is it surprising, then, that they should be able to communicate in this intuitive way? The intuitive channel transmits the mother's thoughts, intentions, and much of her emotion to her baby. The mother receives messages by the same channel from her unborn child, often in the form of dreams. It is through this complex system of prenatal communication that the unborn child learns about herself, her mother, and the world at large. Musical LessonsMany years ago, I received an amusing letter from a woman who during her pregnancy always performed her Lamaze exercises while watching reruns of M*A*S*H. "The M*A*S*H theme became a signal for me to relax," the mother wrote. "I forgot the tensions of the day-including the problems between my husband and myself-and felt truly happy." "As early as six months after her son was born, the mother noticed that whenever the M*A*S*H theme came on, he would stop whatever he was doing and stare at the television as if in a trance. Another patient of mine recalled a Peter, Paul and Mary song she had sung repeatedly during her pregnancy. After the birth of her child, that song had a magical effect on the infant: no matter how hard he was crying, whenever his mother started singing that song-and that song alone-he would quiet down. No one questions the fact that sound and motion reach the baby in the womb. Evidence that babies recognize the mother's voice-and even words or stories she repeats-has been accepted for years. Numerous studies now indicate that the most effective means of communication may be delivered through music. Although the research is fairly recent, the technique is as ancient as motherhood itself. In rural Uganda, for instance, women dance and sing throughout pregnancy, then use the same songs to lull their babies to sleep after they have been born. In Nigeria, ritual dances and songs accompany the prenatal period. In Japan, the traditional practice of Taiko involved communicating with the unborn child through song. One of the first modern researchers to study singing during pregnancy was obstetrician Michel Odent, who organized group meetings around a piano in the French village of Pithiviers. As expectant mothers in the group sang together, Odent found, group intimacy increased-and so did the bond between each mother and her yet-to-be-born child. Compared with an ordinary population of pregnant women, Odent's singing group reported easier births and more powerful bonding between mother and baby immediately afterward.2 Odent's findings piqued the interest of Rosario N. Rozada Montemurro, a midwife who launched the maternal education program at the Health Center at Vilamarxant, Spain. Montemurro and her colleagues created a space and time for expectant mothers to sing. "Meeting to sing one day a week for two hours is now an activity we offer in addition to the basic theoretical classes, walks, picnics, games, films, and meetings with the babies' fathers," Montemurro says.3 The chaotic nature of the clinic, notes Montemurro, does not encourage privacy, intimacy, and silence during birth itself, making the benefits of singing especially important to participants in her group. This environment, she says, "makes it doubly important that we create ways in which a mother finds strength which allows her to believe that she, her baby, and her husband are the principal protagonists during delivery," and that she will be able to bond with her baby and breastfeed thereafter. "Extras" such as singing, she notes, increase the likelihood of success. If singing teaches the unborn child anything, the findings indicate, it may be the basics of bonding and love. Montemurro has found that most expectant mothers have the need to link themselves together, "sharing common anxieties, fantasies, questions, fears, problems, and solutions." The connective consciousness these mothers form through singing extends to their unborn children. The Vilamarxant repertoire includes traditional lullabies in Spanish and Valencian, the local dialect, so that the mothers can sing to their newborns the songs they learned and performed during the group singing. "We included cradle songs which imitated rocking-chair rhythms," says Montemurro. "Some of our mothers could remember their own mothers and grandmothers singing small children to sleep. Some of them could remember being lulled to sleep themselves as the sounds of rocking chairs formed the rhythmic, monotonous 'tic-tac' against the wooden floor, reminding them of their own mothers' heartbeats. Participants learned the old lullabies and folk songs of their mothers and grandmothers joyfully and enthusiastically. As they learned the traditional cradle songs, their own desire to cradle their unborn babies became embodied in music and in words." While an empirical study based on Montemurro's technique has yet to be done, the clinical findings are impressive. Montemurro reports that the pregnant women in her study could feel their unborn children participating in the songs through spontaneous and harmonious fetal movement. Among the traits that researchers have noted are especially prevalent in these children after birth are heightened awareness, ease of bonding, and, at one month of age, a propensity to smile quickly and easily. Mothers report that lullabies sung before birth are especially effective in calming babies and inducing sleep. Boosting Brain PowerThe newest models of neuroscience tell us that sounds, rhythms, and other forms of prenatal stimulation reaching the unborn child are not merely imprinted on the brain but literally act to shape it. Much of the evidence, of course, comes from animal models. Working with rats, the renowned UCLA neuroscientist Marian Diamond was the first to show that pregnant rats housed in enriched and varied environments produced offspring that had larger brains and were more capable of navigating complex mazes than rats not so housed. These findings apply to people, too. "Though the Western world is only recently becoming aware of such a practice, Asian people for centuries have encouraged the pregnant mother to enrich her developing fetus by having pleasant thoughts and avoiding angry, disturbing behavior," Diamond notes.4, 5 Indeed, just as fetal brain cells decrease in size when deprived of nourishment or exposed to alcohol, says Diamond, they apparently increase in size when stimulation is introduced. Diamond suggests caution when contemplating anything more than gentle stimulation of the unborn. "We still do not know whether an enriched condition during pregnancy can prevent some of the massive nerve cell loss, as much as 50 percent to 65 percent of the total population of cells, which occurs during the development of the fetus," she notes. "It is apparent that overproduction of neurons occurs in the fetus because most neurons do not reproduce themselves after being formed: an excess number is needed as a safety factor. Therefore, those that are not involved in the early neuronal processing are 'weeded out.' "Though enriched experimental environments have not been shown to alter the number of nerve cells," Diamond explains, "our results have indicated that variation in the experimental environment can readily alter the size of the preexisting nerve cells in the cerebral cortex, whether in the cell body or in its rich membrane extensions, the dendrites, or in synapses. The importance of stimulation for the well-being of the nerve cells has been demonstrated in many species. But of equally weighty significance is the possible detrimental effect of too much stimulation. The eternal question arises, When is enough enough or too much too much?" The respected pediatrician T. Berry Brazelton points out that infants exposed to too much stimulation-that is, teaching, playing, noise, etc.-respond either by crying, by extending their periods of sleep, by developing colic, or simply by withdrawing. Because the unborn child cannot always register her discomfort, it is all the more vital that we place limits on efforts to stimulate the baby in the womb.6 "The nervous system possesses not just a morning of plasticity, but an afternoon and an evening," Diamond notes. "It is essential not to force a continuous stream of information into the developing brain but to allow for periods of consolidation and assimilation in between." Summing UpThe findings of neuroscience leave no doubt: prenatal stimulation through all three communication channels is essential for the growth and efficient development of the prenatal brain. But more important, the prenatal classroom is better suited for lessons of intimacy, love, and trust than for intellectual calisthenics or boosting IQ. If nurtured in love and kindness, your child will easily acquire these other skills when the time comes. NOTES1. Candace Fields Whitridge, "The Power of Joy: Pre- and Perinatal Psychology as Applied by a Mountain Midwife," Pre- and Perinatal Psychology Journal 2, no. 3 (1988): 186-192.2. Michel Odent, Towards a Less Mechanized Childbirth: Advances in International Maternal and Child Health (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1985).3. Rosario N. Rozada Montemurro, "Singing Lullabies to Unborn Children: Experience in Village Vilamarxant, Spain," Pre- and Perinatal Psychology Journal 11, no. 1 (1996): 9-16.4. Marion Diamond, "Mother's Enriched Environment Alters Brains of Unborn Rats," Brain/Mind Bulletin 12, no. 7 (1987): 1, 5.5. M. C. Diamond, "The Significance of Enrichment," in Enriching Heredity (New York: The Free Press, 1988).6. T. Berry Brazelton, as quoted in Susan Quinn, "The Competence of Babies," Atlantic Monthly, January 1982: 54-62.See www.mothering.com for articles and discussion boards on pregnancy. Thomas R. Verny, MD, is a gifted psychiatrist, academic, writer, communicator, and accoucheur to prenatal and perinatal psychology. He is the author or coauthor of seven books, including the 1981 international best seller The Secret Life of the Unborn Child and the recently published Pre-Parenting: Nurturing Your Child from Conception, as well as 45 scientific papers. He is the visionary founder and first president of the Association for Pre- & Perinatal Psychology and Health on whose board of directors he continues to serve. Dr. Verny is on the faculty of the Santa Barbara Graduate Institute.Pamela Weintraub, a science journalist with 20 years' experience in writing about health and medicine, is the author or coauthor of 16 books.

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