19 th February, 1992
Dear friends:
I am writing this setter to explain to you how was my personal experience
with the Firstart System.
I will tell you first, as a professional, that it seems to me something very
interesting and useful.
But I want to focus on the mother’s respect, since I think, this can tell
us more things.
Because of certain circumstances, the beginning of my pregnancy was not really
very relaxing, it coincided with my father’s death, when I was one month
pregnant. That was a real strong psychological stroke that changed or eclipsed
the development of my gestation.
One day, I was reading “Parents”, a specialized magazine to which
I am subscribed, and I saw an article about your system, and since I had read
something about the subject before, I phoned you. I was marvellously attended,
receiving all kinds of explanations from you.
I started the programme a bit late, around six months o, to be more precise,
at six months and a half of gestation.
I left behind all the stress accumulated, both physically ( since I still kept
working in my consulting room ) as well as the psychological tiredness was leaved
aside, each time I could relax with my belt and my music. I stayed so relaxed
that many times I had to be awakened, since I was giving a little concert of
snores. Instead of half an hour, sometimes it was hours of listening.
That relaxation was also changing my psychology and partly, the pregnancy was
no more eclipsed now, because of my father’s loss ( and overall, the circumstances
that provoked it: a heart attack at nigh and, as a doctor, I was unable to revive
him, during three hours….. ).
Continuing with my pregnancy all was normal. The moment of the delivery came
and I kept on with my music until I went to the delivery room. The delivery
itself was absolutely normal ( Eutocic ), with no anesthesia, only local for
the perineum cut, and I even remember delivery as something pleasant and joyful,
since I could control dilatation with a mirror…. Well, a positive experience.
The days after birth, music was an inseparable companion in the cradle.
At that time “The Friend “ ( as we call him at home ), whose name
is Daniel, is 9 months old and listen to all kinds of music, above all during
the morning when I am housecleaning and he really is fascinated, he even lets
fall down his toys and listens. Not only the Firstart System music, but also
other kinds of music ( specially folkloric and instrumental ones, that is Sephardic,
medieval, ….. ).
What do you then want me to tell you about the method but thank you for:
- Taking away my distress during my pregnancy.
- Giving to my gestation the positive wish I always dreamed of.
- Doing me forget my professional problems, when I put my Firstart belt on (
which is quite difficult to me, since I don’t usually close my consulting
room when I come back home ).
- Making my delivery a wonderful experience.
- Having a precious “friend”.
- And for having some friends that, even though we do not each other personally,
they know where to find their second house.
I am at your disposal, with all my heart.
Kisses.
LETTER PUBLISHED IN A SPECIALIZED MAGAZINE
February 1991.
Prenatal Method
I felt very pleased when I saw the Alonso family in the article about Prenatal
Stimulation published last October which I liked very much.
Two years ago, through a radio interview, I heard Mr Alonso talking about the
prenatal stimulation followed by his wife during the pregnancy of their son
Diego.
My oldest daughter is maturing retarded and thinking in helping her, I decided
to contact that family.
From the United States, they sent to me the musical sounds that constitute today
the Firstart Prenatal Stimulation System.
Subsequently, I became pregnant and I followed that programme. By now, my son
who is 15 months old, is a wonderful and charming boy, happy, clever and with
a marvellous character.
I waited 6 years to have that child and I feel so happy of having given that
so important step forward in my life that I want to encourage other parents
who have children with problems to have more children.
I must thank in public the Alonso family who not they only gave me their method
and some bibliography about the subject but, furthermore, they offered their
affection, support and friendship.
And thanks to “Crecer Feliz” for spreading that modern method.
CARMEN GARCÍA JIMÉNEZ
Doctor in Medicine
MARIA LUZ A. G.
DENTIST
Avilés, February 18th 1992
Dear Sirs,
I am writing to congratulate you for your Firstart Method.
I am very satisfied of the good results obtained by my daughter Laura. As a
newborn, she attracted attention from the pediatricians because of her reflexes.
Right now, they say to me ( pediatricians ) she has a very good psychomotor
development. I am also amazed by her good ear and her sense of rhythm: she claps
her hands to the sound of songs, and so on…
As a professional of medicine I recommend the method to my pregnant friends,
and when I talk about it with my mates, they tell me it is very interesting.
My best wishes.
LAURA B.
Girona August 3rd 1991
Dear Mrs. Plaza,
As requested, I send to you a copy of the hours control card duly filled up. As you may see, I have been writing the face of the tape I made the baby listen to, in order to follow an order more easily. When I write “F”, I am referring to a family tape we recorded at home ( his father, his two brothers and myself ). In that tape, we talked and sang to him individually. In the whole amount of hours, I have not included the time my baby listened to that family tape.
The boy was born on July 20th, at 5 hours 30 minutes in the morning, and considering
that I had the first contraction at 2’00 in the morning, it was quite
fast. I did not want the obstetrician to put me the epidural anesthesia, neither
did I want him to practise the perineum cut. The doctor and the birth educator
helped me so I did not need to be stitched.
The first nights, the baby was a bit uneasy, awaking each two or three hours.
A few nights ago he started to have a much more normalized timetable; he sleeps
from 5 to 6 hours each night and is able to stand 4 hours until the next breast
taking.
He is in general, a very quiet child, he likes to be touched and talked. He
cries very little and shows to have a very good ear. All the tests done by the
pediatricians have been satisfactory. At the clinic, the nurses realized he
was hanged on every noise he heard in the room ( they said the other newborns,
did not care about their goings and comings ).
I am quite pleased of having used the Firstart method, even thought it was little
time. I think you should promote it more, because many mothers are unaware of
its existence and, what is worse, they are unacquainted of the capacity of learning
their unborn child has.
Nothing else to tell. Only congratulate you for your brilliant method and for
having taught us to love and understand more our son. Just because of that,
I think it has been worth to know you.
My best wishes and again, my most sincere congratulations for your method.
ROCÍO S.
Pedagogue
February 24th 1992
Dear friends,
From the time I was studying Pedagogy, I have always been very interested
in all related to early infant stimulation, but I had never arised seriously
the capacity of the fetus to learn until I became pregnant.
Dr. Susan Ludington, Director of the American Association for Infant Stimulation,
stated that several studies had demonstrated how the fetus very quickly reacts
to musical sounds. His heartbeat accelerates at least 15 beats per minute during
the first minutes of listening. That’s why, when I heard about a prenatal
stimulation system based on music ( The Firstart Project ), I had no doubt in
joining the project, being in my fourth month of gestation.
I am not a doctor, so I cannot explain the mechanism for which the sound can
transmit to the fetus, and I can only refer to my personal experience.
I have to admit that I didn’t use the Method following disciplinarily
the instructions I was recommended, that is fixed hours, etc…., but after
a few months, I started to notice that the fetus moved more when he listened
to the Firstart music.
After the delivery, I continued to use the Firstart tapes the baby listened
to during pregnancy, to make him sleep. I also use all the infant stimulation
methods I knew to stimulate all his senses, I even carried him one hour a day
to swim.
My baby has always been a healthy child, who never gave me any problem to eat
or sleep and who, does not he scarcely cry, but has always a smile or a burst
of laughter on his mouth.
His motor development is excellent; at five months he already crawled, at six
he was able to go up the stairs and walk getting hold of the furniture, at ten
months he was able to go down the stairs, he put keys on their lock and took
grains of rice from the the floor. Now, he is eleven months old, he doesn’t
walk yet, but he even know how to get down from a high bed without any help.
His language skills are also very advanced, not only because of the words he
already knows, papá, mamá, tía, etc… ( dad, mom,
aunt, in Spanish ), but for the amount of things he understands and simple orders
he obeys, “ dámelo, no toques éso, enciende la luz, busca
a, etc… “ ( do not touch that, switch on the light, look for someone.....
in Spanish ).
We now make him listen to Opera which he loves and if one day we do not put
on music to him, he cries when he is left alone in his bedroom. He loves to
play with his piano toy, but we cannot teach him music because we don’t
know how and, I am afraid that, in Valencia, there is no infant school that
takes seriously musical teaching.
Jaime Sieres, Dean of Education Sciences at the University of Valencia thinks
that learning music favours the left hemisphere ( the analytical brain ) as
well as the right hemisphere ( the creative brain ).
All Infant Schools ( until 4 years of age in Spain ) should have music and encourage
its learning and enjoyment, insisting even more in it with children who lack
a primary sense like sight.
Nothing else to tell you, I take the opportunity to give my salutations.
Big hugs. My best wishes.
MARISA G.
June 30th, 1994
Fistart Sirs,
I send to you a filled up copy of the hours audition card. With the present letter I also want to shortly tell you, that you music has really been useful to communicate with my son when he was in my womb, giving to us moments of great relaxation.
My boy was born 15 days before due date, but he has demonstrated to be quite
alert and interested in whatever thing around him. He is now five months old.
At three months of age, he knew how to say “agua” ( Water in Spanish
) among other sounds; at 4 months, he was able to say “aupa” ( Up
in Spanish ), “auma”, “eco”, “ñigo”,
“puf”, “buf”, “if”…. And when he was
20 days old, he repeated singing exactly the lullaby that his grandmother was
singing to him with the words “ea,ea”.
He has self-confidence and strong character and, thanks to the music, which
still relax both of us, I can communicate to him and “they listen”.
Thank you.
Faithfully yours.
Valencia, February 20th 1992
As requested by our friends Manuel and Rosa, we tell you our personal experience,
because of implementing the Firstart Method ( The School for the Unborn ) in
a very important period of our lives that is, the period between the pregnancy,
delivery and first months of our children’s life.
We’ll first clarify that we are referring to the fact that they are “triplets”,
two boys and a girl, who were born in May 26 1991.
We will tell our experience below:
In the first months of pregnancy we knew about the Firstart Method from a specialized
magazine. We immediately were very interested in obtaining more information
about the matter, even though the application of the programme was always referred
to “nomal” pregnancies, with consequent doubts and fears arised
with the “multiple” pregnancy.
In spite of those doubts, we placed our complete confidence in the system, believing
that it would be highly beneficial for us, as parents and for the evolution
of our children, and in fact, it has been that way.
Pregnancy was absolutely normal, with great illusion and interest because of
the changes I was experimenting, delivering almost on du date ( 8 months and
20 days ).
The delivery evolved with no complications; reaching birth weights of 2.320,
2.400 and 2.410 grames, the children were taken to room after a few hours of
appropriate tests.
Once we arrived home, very happy with the favourable results obtained, the difficult
labour of nursing started, but from the first day until now, we could see that
the children have a quiet character, inquisitive, with easy get to sleep, very
cheerful, good eaters, in short, they are children who evolve rapidly and according
to their ages, going positively through each of their developing stages.
Respecting the auditory stimulation, our children discriminated precociously
the more familiar voices ( father and mother ), demonstrating sensitivity before
other voices and near noises, manifesting pleasure or displeasure depending
of the intensity of the sound they heard.
We have also detected a great sensitivity to music, so that they are able to
relax when listening to classical music, even doing their own activities as
touching toys, creeping, crawling, discovering the space, etc… and they
may even get asleep, but on the other hand, they change their attitude showing
a greater happiness and vitality when listening to child music. We’ll
also add that after their birth, the first time they listened to the Firstart
tapes, we could confirm they recognized the sounds at once.
With nothing else to say and hoping that our experience guides in a positive
way those parents in favour of prenatal stimulation, we send you our best wishes.
NADAL (Architect) S. CLARA B. (Child Psychologist)
SPECIAL OBSERVATIONS AND ANECDOTES RELATED BY PARENTS IN QUESTIONNAIRE
It has been quite difficult to answer the questions even so the child is only
10 months old, I cannot be precise. May be it is of help you know that, since
he is 9 months and a half, he perfectly passes the pages of a magazine and likes
to watch its pictures. At 9 ½ months, I also discovered he knew several
parts of his body: nose, ears, hands, feet and tongue. At 10 months if I ask
him to bring his shoes, he gives them to me, if they are close to him. Also
at 10, after his bath, when I am drying him, he hides his feet with the towel
and says “NO HI ES” ( they are not there, in Catalonian, one of
the Spanish official languages ) and he moves his hands in the air. He then
uncovers his feet and is very happy to rediscover them. He does that with toys,
as well, hiding them. From about the ninth month, when he hears some music,
he moves as if he would dance. In the middle of May ( 10 months ), he learnt
in little time, to do the characteristic movements of tipical child songs: i.e.
5 lobitos, ralet ralet… pom pom… mà manetes toca galtetes….
( tipical Spanish and Catalonian child songs ). With last one, he does the movements
with no need of telling him anything and says: “ai,ia,ia,ia…..”
as if he would sing.
I hope this was of help. I this does not represent any trouble, I would like
to know the results of that survey. Receive affectionate greetings.
LAURA B.
Girona
After his birth he looked at all of us one by one, turning his head. A few hours after birth, I put him on my chest, he quieted down totally and smiled two times. He slept on my chest all night very quietly, without awaking. At two months, when I put on the tape with my voice, my husband’s and my sons’ when whey were absent, he was so happy that he turned his head to look for them, laughing with happiness. We recorded a lullaby he heard in my womb and after birth, all the times we sing that lullaby to him, he is so comfortable and so happy that he falls asleep.
I don’t know if he is more or less intelligent or vivacious than other
children, but what I can surely say is that he is very sharp, he is attracted
by everything, he observes with much enthusiasm, he leans very quickly when
you teach him something, bit what surprises me is that, when he was one month
old, he clearly said “mama” and has always been saying it when he
needs me or he is hungry since then, even though I never taught him to tell
it. At six months, he did cack, looked at me and even though I never told him,
he said very clearly and separately to me “bebé-caca” ( baby
cack, in Spanish ). He told it during three days just after defecating. At 7
months, even though I never taught him to say it, he saw the sea and said “agua”
( water in Spanish ) What is really surprising is that all comes from himself
with no need of teaching him. He says “guapa” ( pretty in Spanish
) since he is 6 months old and understands at 7 months, many of the words and
sentences we tell him. But above all he is a very cheerful and happy child.
He laughs a lot.
MALLORCA
He knows how to choose the colours when he is asked ( 8 months ). He loves music. He cannot stand noises. At three months of age, he made me laugh, laughing himself loudly because he perceived my sadness when I got home depressed by work problems. He has been doing that for several times.
After birth, being in the hospital room in the cradle, he perceived his mother’s
moans, after she was moved from the surgery room to her bedroom, he started
to desperately cry. I think it was more the perception of pain than the intensity
of the sound itself, since that one was feeble.