The womb is not a quiet, isolated place; life within it offers abundant and varied experiences that prepare the baby for the world she will meet when she moves out. We are learning to recognize how sensitive, able and already experienced a newly born baby is. She arrives able to breathe and feed, and occasionally can complain loudly. She is also able, in quiet and subtle ways, to respond to people and is so endearing in her actions that she can elicit the loving care she needs. Her competence has developed gradually. New means of observation have made it possible to discover how responsive and active the baby already is in the months preceding birth. Certainly she does not simply lie there curled up in the legendary fetal position.
Geraldine Lux Flanagan Beginning Life. (New York: DK, 1996) 9.
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