Hi Roxanne,

Do experiences from the prenatal period - the very beginning of our life, when we are still in the womb - influence who we later become?

The work of the Czech psychiatrist and psychotherapist Stanislav Grof suggests that what happens to us before birth - our mother’s emotional state, the atmosphere in the family, tension, safety, or the lack of it - can leave deep imprints in the nervous system.

They may exist as implicit imprints - emotional tones, bodily sensations, or deep emotional patterns that later appear in life as reactions we cannot easily explain.

In Grof’s work on perinatal psychology, these early experiences were described as forming part of the perinatal matrices - layers of experience related to pregnancy, birth, and the earliest phases of life that may shape later emotional and psychological patterns.

Today, modern developmental research is also beginning to explore similar ideas from another angle.

Studies in fetal programming and epigenetics suggest that the prenatal environment - including maternal stress hormones, emotional states, and environmental conditions - can influence the developing nervous system and stress-regulation mechanisms of the fetus.

For example, research by Michael Meaney and colleagues has shown how early environmental conditions can alter gene expression related to stress regulation. Other studies suggest that elevated maternal stress during pregnancy may influence the infant’s later sensitivity to stress.

During one workshop, I worked with a participant who had struggled for years with a vague feeling that "something is wrong with me."

In close relationships, she was constantly vigilant, afraid of rejection. She couldn’t explain why — she had grown up in a loving and supportive family. During the process, we reached a very delicate place.

She remembered a story her parents once told her: when she was conceived, they were in the middle of a serious crisis and considering separation. The pregnancy came as a shock.
Eventually, they stayed together and created a stable, loving home for her.

But that first emotional signal — "this is not a good time; we don’t want a child now" — seemed to echo somewhere deep in her system.

When she allowed herself to feel that place, without trying to rationalize it, something began to reorganize inside her. For the first time, she could contact that very young part of herself and feel its pain with compassion.

My own prenatal story

When I was four months in my mother’s womb, my grandfather - my mother’s father - suddenly died.
She was devastated. They had been very close. She cried for weeks and worried about how her grief might affect the pregnancy.

I am still discovering traces of that experience in myself, exploring how those early emotional conditions may have shaped certain sensitivities in my nervous system.

Another theme that appears in perinatal literature is the phenomenon sometimes called the vanishing twin.
Research suggests that 10–30% of pregnancies may initially begin as twin pregnancies, even though the mother may never know this. In many cases, one embryo stops developing very early in the pregnancy.

Some therapists working with prenatal and perinatal psychology describe how certain clients report feelings that resonate with this experience - an unexplained sense of absence, a subtle longing, or sometimes a strong tendency to either cling to people or keep them at a distance.

Of course, these experiences are difficult to prove empirically in individual cases. But clinically, many therapists observe how exploring early developmental layers can bring meaningful insight.

When there is no story

Working with these early imprints often feels like slowly meeting emotions that came into the world before we learned language.

There may be no story we can easily tell. This is why many approaches that work directly with the body — somatic therapies, breathwork, or deep experiential processes — can sometimes open access to these layers of experience.

One surprisingly powerful starting point can be a conversation with your parents.

You might ask:

What was happening in your lives before I was born?
What was your relationship like at that time?
What was the emotional atmosphere around the pregnancy?
Was there joy? Fear? Crisis?
Were there complications during pregnancy or birth?
What was happening in the world at that time?

Each small piece of information can enrich your understanding of the earliest chapter of your life - the months you spent in the womb before you entered the world.

Sometimes, these forgotten beginnings hold keys to understanding patterns that appeared much later.