12 Guiding Principles

Nurturing human potential and optimizing relationships from the beginning of life.

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where every baby is welcomed, loved, nurtured, and seen for the amazing, conscious and aware being they are from the beginning of life. As these babies grow, so does their capacity to love, to empathize with others, to be in relationship and to live in joy.

As our first generation matures, we would see the ripple effect grow to encompass greater learning capacity, emotional intelligence and creativity, the emergence of new leaders, and healthier families and communities.

For thirsty learners ... We offer mentoring, keynotes, workshops, and trainings for you and your community.

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families, professionals, organizations, and communities,
as we come together to nurture human potential and optimize relationships from the beginning of life.

Prenatal and Perinatal Psychology

Understanding our earliest relationship experiences from the baby’s point of view and how these experiences set in motion life patterns has been the intense study of the field of prenatal and perinatal psychology for over 40 years. The field uses this lens to focus on our earliest human experience from preconception through baby’s first postnatal year and its role in creating children who thrive and become resilient, loving adults.

Prenatal and Perinatal Psychology incorporates research and clinical experience from leading-edge fields such as epigenetics, biodynamic embryology, infant mental health, attachment, early trauma, developmental neurosciences, consciousness studies and other new sciences.

We offer these 12 principles as a beacon to help guide parenting practice, professional practice, theory and research and to support human potential and optimal relationships from the beginning of life. These principles lay the foundation for a new movement in welcoming and caring for our babies. Everyone has a part to play.

The Association for Prenatal and Perinatal Psychology and Health adopted and endorses the 12 Guiding Principles-PPN.

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The 12 Guiding Principles

The principles address the following topics:

  1. The Primary Period
  2. Forming the Core Blueprint
  3. Continuum of Development
  4. Capacities & Capabilities
  5. Relationship
  6. Innate Need
  7. Communication
  8. Mother-Baby Interconnectedness
  9. Bonding
  10. Resolving & Healing
  11. Underlying Patterns
  12. Professional Support

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Customized Training
and Mentoring


We offer customized services to support you to explore and incorporate the 12 Guiding Principles and Prenatal and Perinatal Psychology into your life and community, including mentoring, presentations, workshops, and trainings.

Our Presenters:

Wendy Anne McCarty, PhD, RN

Holistic Nurse Baccalaureate-Board Certified; Diplomat, Comprehensive Energy Psychology; Director of the 12 Guiding Principles Project; and primary co-author of the proclamation. Founding Chair of Prenatal and Perinatal Psychology Program, Santa Barbara Graduate Institute.

Marti Glenn, PhD

Clinical Director of Ryzio Institute and primary co-author of the 12 Guiding Principles proclamation. Founding President of Santa Barbara Graduate Institute, known for its graduate degrees in prenatal and perinatal psychology, somatic psychology and clinical psychology.

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What’s New From the Blog

  • Pathways to Family Wellness Podcast Interview with Wendy Anne McCartyFebruary 27, 2020 - 11:20 am

    Matters of the Heart During Pregnancy: From the podcast website — On this episode we’ll be speaking with Dr Wendy Anne McCarty, a pioneer in the leading-edge field of prenatal and perinatal psychology and the expanded multidimensional understandings of babies. In this fascinating interview Dr. McCarty shares her own journey of evolution from a Newtonian […]

  • APPPAH Monday Live Program with Wendy Anne McCartyFebruary 27, 2020 - 11:09 am

    Prenatal and Perinatal Psychology (PPN) Findings: A Call to Evolve Early Development Theories and Models–An Overview A Webinar with Wendy Anne McCarty – January 13, 2020. The field of prenatal and perinatal psychology has decades of clinical evidence and experience that expand our current early development understandings to a greater multidimensional lens. Often when professionals […]

  • Pregnant couple in the sunThe Association for Prenatal and Perinatal Psychology and Health – 2019April 23, 2019 - 12:39 pm

    APPPAH offers many avenues of learning, participating and collaborating within a community that celebrates and honors the consciousness of babies as both sentient consciousness and sensitive human being from the beginning of life. APPPAH adopted and endorses the 12 Guiding Principles-PPN. Here are three upcoming events:

  • Dad and Mom with newbornWhen We Enter Baby’s Multidimensional World…April 4, 2019 - 11:45 am

    For 30 years, I have had the privilege of working with babies and families through the consciousness-based paradigm lens of who babies are and how we can best welcome and support them. When we enter their multidimensional world with reverence and receptivity, we awaken greater love, awe, and avenues to nurture the baby’s human potential […]

Stay in Touch!

The Association for Prenatal and Perinatal Psychology and Health

APPPAH is a public-benefit educational and scientific organization that offers many avenues of learning, participating and collaborating within a community that celebrates and honors the consciousness of babies as both sentient consciousness and sensitive human being from the beginning of life.

APPPAH educates professionals and the public worldwide, as shown through scientific discoveries and continually emerging evidence, that prenatal and perinatal experiences have a profound impact on the subsequent quality of health and human behavior and that life is a continuum which starts before conception, not after birth. The Association for Pre- and Perinatal Psychology and Health focuses attention on the life-changing discoveries being made in the first period of human development from preparation for pregnancy through the postpartum period and establishment of breastfeeding.

Featured Offerings:

  • Monday Live: Exploring Birth Psychology
  • Prenatal and Perinatal Psychology Educator Certificate Program – PPNE
  • Nurturing Connection: Early Parenting Knowledge and Practices to Support Consciousness & Health for Your  – NEW
  • Regional and International Conferences
  • Journal and Newsletters
  • 12 Guiding Principles Printed Brochures

More information about these upcoming events and series.