“These hands are the first thing that the child will encounter. The language they speak is the primal language, the language of touch. This is how mother and child were communicating. It was through the child’s back that he received her messages. Now that he is born, the way we touch him is crucial … At this moment, what the child needs is to be massaged, just as newborn animals need to be licked by their mothers – the act without which they often die”.
– Birth Without Violence, Frederick Leboyer, M.D.
