Ignatia after Delivery following Trauma in Utero
(or: Rebirth into the World)

There was certainly a serious disorder in this little three-year-old girl. B. was sullen, easily offended, stubborn, jealous, over‑clingy, and she seemed to have no zest for life. She had little appetite, was thin and therefore had little energy. She was chilly and suffered from constipation and urinary retention.

At first it was not clear what had triggered this emotional state, until the mother told me — already with her hand on the door handle — what had happened in the last two weeks of her pregnancy with B. A close acquaintance, whom she saw daily, had committed suicide after killing her husband and then her children with a kitchen knife, a horrific case of postpartum depression in a mother who had given birth at home. B.’s mother cried uncontrollably and was inconsolable in the last two weeks of her pregnancy. That suicide/murder was a tremendous shock at the time for the whole area and particularly for those close to her.

B.’s problems were already evident almost as soon as she was born: she cried incessantly whenever she was not safe and secure in her mother’s arms. Three years later B. still seemed to be in shock and mourning. Her mother described her as “odd, living in her own world”. She did not want to go to nursery and reacted angrily and defiantly when forced to do so. At nursery she would stand at the edge of the playground instead of playing with children her own age. When asked to do something she did not want to do, she would glare at her parents, and if the expected response did not come, she would throw a tantrum.

She was jealous of her sister and had even bitten her on the back. She threatened to break things she knew were important to someone, or she would say: “I’ll kill you!” or “I want you to die.” B.’s mother said she then had a hard, stony look. On one occasion it even appeared that she had tried to drown herself; she had been found floating face down in the pool. Her mother and sister had been very close by and her mother had been briefly occupied with her other daughter. (Ignatia: “Suicidal thoughts (drowning) and desire to escape; melancholia after great grief and domestic troubles”.)

Much pointed to Ignatia as the remedy of choice for B. “Biting on the back” seems a rare, strange and striking behaviour. Ignatia is the only known remedy in the literature that covers this symptom. She also had a pronounced fear of birds, particularly chickens, for which Ignatia is also known.

Ignatia is described for some eating disorders in Farok J. Masters’ “Children’s Remedies”: “Bulimia when sad or anorexia as a result of grief.” The mother’s emotional state during pregnancy was clearly a shocking experience for the unborn child. Masters points to such situations in: “The State of the Mind Influencing the Foetus” (1999, B. Jain Publishers). Transmission occurs under the following circumstances:

1. Prolongation of the triggering cause, which continues on and on.

2. Transmission of the mother’s state of mind during pregnancy to the unborn child. “This can determine in which month of pregnancy this state developed.” Lou Klein explained in his masterclass for clinicians(1) that the stages in which the strongest effects on the foetus are seen are the time of conception and the entire first trimester, the last two weeks before birth and the birth itself. The Ignatia state, which is transmitted to B. during the last two weeks of pregnancy, is also described in Farok Masters’ “Children’s Remedies”(2): complaints from insult, punishment or reproach ... confrontation with the death of close and loved ones (grandparents, parents or friends); contradiction ... emotions such as fear, anger, jealousy or wounded pride; failure.”

In this case both applied: terror and shock. She was confronted with the dreadful, cruel death of the family she knew, which she experienced through her mother. Six months after B.’s birth the mother not only had to contend with the terrible loss of her friend, but also had to stop her own mother from ending her life with a kitchen knife. She stood with the baby in her arms in front of her depressed mother and begged her earnestly not to kill herself in front of the child. Later I realised that the grandmother, with her epileptic seizures and her knife mania, also fitted into the Ignatia picture.
Gradually, after she received Ignatia in various potencies, her behaviour began to change dramatically. She no longer spoke of death or threatened to kill herself over a small incident. She began to take an interest in her school subjects and expressed a desire to learn to read.

She became calmer, felt comfortable at school and was overall more communicative. For the first time she began to play with dolls. Previously she had never shown any interest in dolls or babies. She even said: “When we have our baby…!” The potency was increased after she temporarily relapsed into earlier tantrums. After that the tantrums ceased and it was as if she had become a new child: lively, radiant and sociable, whereas before she had been a small girl with a gloomy expression.

As a relatively newly established practitioner I am very pleased with this positive experience. It gives my future practice a foundation and helps me to connect my views and ideas with my philosophy and my spirituality.

Category: Cases
Keywords: In utero trauma, lack of will to live, loss of appetite, anxiety, shock
Remedy: Ignatia amara