Prenatal bonding · Pregnancy massage · Craniosacral work · Postpartum care · Placenta medicine
pregnancy thrives with continuity of care
Modern pregnancy care often happens through brief appointments and fragmented support.
Yet pregnancy is one of the most profound thresholds of human life — physically, emotionally, and spiritually.
Mythical Parenting was created to restore something that once existed in every village:
a trusted presence walking beside the mother and her baby throughout pregnancy, birth, and the early postpartum.
This work offers body-based care, preparation, and integration for one of the most important transitions a woman and her baby will ever live.
Rooted in a deep commitment to holistic, ongoing support, this offering is inspired by traditional ways of tending pregnancy, birth, and the postpartum period, as well as healing practices. It weaves together all that I’ve learned to support you and your baby from early pregnancy through the sacred window of the first eight weeks after birth, honoring each phase with presence and care, with the possibility of continued support beyond.
Do you want to feel truly connected to your baby during pregnancy, without the overwhelm of endless advice and information?
Do you want to embrace birth with trust in your intuition,
free from doubts and what-ifs?
Do you want to welcome your baby with intention while preparing for postpartum by confidently advocating for your needs and feeling fully supported as a new mother?
Because postpartum planning begins during pregnancy.
the rhythm of the baby and the rhythm of life
A baby’s rhythm is ancient — slow, cyclical, fluid —
so different from the one we have grown used to in modern life.
Our world moves fast: full of impulses, screens, and noise,
and we forget that the language of new life is silence, softness, and presence.
To truly welcome a baby earthside, we must slow down to their rhythm.
It is not the baby who must adapt to the adult world,
but the adult who must return to the tempo of the beginning —
the sacred slowness where bonding, safety, and love are woven.
Mythical Parenting supports and acknowledges what babies truly need.
When parents attune to their baby’s rhythm and organize life around the
mother/baby dyad, especially in the first six weeks after birth, the mother
emerges from her initiation whole, rested, and embodied in her new self.
The baby feels safe, received, and in harmony with the world.
Planning for the fourth trimester is a map for this return —
a guidance into the physiological, emotional and spiritual needs of
both mother and baby, and an invitation for those around them to learn
how to tend, hold, and protect this sacred cocoon.
Because there is no getting back to “normal.”
This is about prioritising lifelong health,
and creating a system of care and connection
during the most tender and transformative time in a woman’s life.
Photo credit by Lennart Nilsson
Tending to the soul needs of your baby
A Journey into the Soul of Parenthood.
Continuum of Care from early pregnancy beyond the initial postpartum period.
You are more than a parent-to-be.
You are a soul welcoming another soul.
A body within a body.
A breath within breath.
A field within a field.
Parenting does not begin at birth.
It begins in the unseen,
in the moment you become conscious of the soul arriving through you.
Prenatal bonding begins in the imaginal,
in the subtle conversation between your heart and the life forming inside you.
This is the mythic invitation:
to live your pregnancy as a sacred collaboration between two souls.
To return to wonder.
To parent from the magic field where all life begins.
Artwork by Natalia Rak Art
the essence
It is known that many indigenous traditions welcome the soul of a child before conception and through the whole process of pregnancy until birth.
And in many traditions, the initial postpartum period is also honored as sacred:
• The Cuarentena in Mexico
• The Golden Month in Traditional Chinese Medicine
• The Sacred Window in Ayurveda
These cultures understand that birth is not an ending, but a passage — one that continues after the baby arrives.
Without proper care, mothers risk long-term exhaustion, physical strain, and emotional overwhelm (postpartum depression).
When postpartum time is tended to with reverence, however, the mother and baby remain within a cocoon of love and regeneration — the same field of creation that carried them through pregnancy.
Mythical Parenting is the remembering of how it used to be.
A return to the sacred relationship between mother, baby, and the soul that calls them both into being.
Beyond the books, beyond classes, beyond material things that are not needed, beyond the consumerism that they sell us in order to disconnect from what truly is needed — what is really necessary is the deep connection with your body, your intuition, and your baby in the womb.
Because women are designed to create life within and give birth, and babies know how and when to be born.
But something deeper still whispers a longing that no checklist can soothe.
A quiet ache to really meet your baby.
To feel them.
To know them — not as a concept, but as a consciousness.
Because what you’re truly longing for is not more information — but communion.
Photo credit: unkown, found in Printrest
"Mothers, your body served as the ladder that spirit used to climb down into matter."
Erica Matluck
Many pregnancy courses, such as Hypnobirthing or Birth Preparation, focus on helping the mother and her birthing partner prepare for labor and the practical care of the newborn.
While these are valuable resources, Mythical Parenting — inspired by Prenatal Bonding Analysis and traditional birth and postpartum practices — offers something different: it centers on the relationship between mother and baby during pregnancy itself.
The method allows the mother and baby to get to know one another before birth, to grow their bond during pregnancy, and to prepare together for birth and for life outside the womb.
Mothers and babies need more connection and touch, not more information.
When we tend to the body, to the slowing down of tempo, we have the possibility of entering into the territory of soul parenting — the mythic field where body and spirit meet, where the baby is not only a heartbeat in your womb, but a presence whispering:
I'm here.
Will you listen?
Here is where incarnation happens.
what is mythical parenting
Mythical Parenting is an ongoing journey that begins in early pregnancy.
A weaving of prenatal bonding, bodywork (for the ones living close to me), mindfulness, guided meditation, and ritual, held together by physiological awareness and the mystery of creation itself.
An approach rooted in Bonding-Oriented Pregnancy Support (B.O.P.S.) and in the ancient ways of welcoming life and tending to baby inside and outside the mother.
This is not a method.
It is a remembering.
A remembering of how mothers, fathers, and whole communities once welcomed new souls through song, ritual, and presence.
It's a way of living.
Science now echoes what our ancestors always knew:
The baby in the womb feels.
The baby in the womb responds.
The baby in the womb remembers.
This journey invites you to re-enter that field of wonder — to listen, to attune, to hold the story that your baby’s soul wants you to carry.
Pregnancy is a time of profound transformation: physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual.
It is an invitation to turn inward, to connect deeply with the life growing within, to remember that you are not only carrying a child but nurturing a new consciousness.
The baby’s developing brain is shaped by the experiences and the environment of the womb.
Mythical Parenting nourishes this process, supporting both mother and baby in balance and harmony.
It encourages homeostasis and releases oxytocin — the hormone of love and trust.
It soothes anxiety.
It eases fear.
It slows the heart.
It deepens presence.
When this early connection is strengthened, parents feel more confident, more supported, more whole.
Birth unfolds with coherence and trust, and the risks of preterm birth, trauma, and unnecessary intervention naturally fall away.
This is a foundation for thriving life to come forward.
This is a journey of remembrance —
of learning to listen to life before it becomes visible.
To parent not from the mind,
but from the mythic field of soul.
who is this for ?
Mothers, fathers, and parents who:
●Feel the mystical in motherhood.
●Want to birth and raise children by tending to their soul needs — so they may become who they camehere to be, fulfilling their soul purpose.
●Are ready to unlearn and remember.
●Are willing to slow down and listen to the mystery of Creation.
●Want to heal the lineage by changing how we welcome life.
●Want to write their own myth — and welcome their child to write theirs.
●Long to feel their baby, not just prepare for them — to communicate, attune, and co-create from the
womb.
●Who, deep inside, know that parenting is not a role but a sacred relationship — and want to step into the highest responsibility and the deepest blessing one is ever given.
This is for you if:
●You want to connect with your baby and don't know how.
●You sense there’s more to motherhood than prenatal checkups and birth plans.
●You feel the mystery pulsing beneath the practical.
●You feel the call to parent from soul, not just survival.
●You sense that your baby is already communicating and you want to learn how to listen.
●You long for a pregnancy that feels sacred, connected, and alive with meaning.
●You want to prepare not just for birth, but for the lifelong relationship between you and your child’s soul.
●You may be healing after a loss, learning to trust your body and this new life again.
●You want to include your partner in a conscious, soulful preparation.
●You want to parent from connection, not perfection.
●You want to tap and trust your intuition to guide you through the process
●You are curious to listen to your baby’s voice within.
●You want to differentiate between your own emotions and your baby’s.
●You wish to welcome your child through ritual, song, and soul communication.
●You desire to birth consciously, together — already bonded, already in dialogue.
●You want to prepare consciously for any type of birth — I only work with planned cesareans when there’s a
genuine medical necessity.
what happens inside mythical parenting
This work goes beyond parenting techniques into the mythic, ancestral, and imaginal realms where life begins.
It’s not about performance or control.
It’s about remembering how to listen.
The body is born out of the soul, not the other way around.
Through deep guided meditations, visualizations, ritual, and inviting slow tempo to the present moment, we meet our babies in the invisible field that shapes everything visible.
When that field is coherent —
when the time comes —
mother and baby move together through birth organically, with trust and alignment.
Through Mythical Parenting, we:
●Promote a deep prenatal mother–baby bond.
●Strengthen the mother mentally and emotionally.
●Support her personal growth during pregnancy.
●Meet the baby’s innate need to feel loved, wanted, and protected.
●Guide the mother in learning how to differentiate her own emotions and experiences from those of her baby.
●Offer a space for deep listening and honoring the mother’s journey.
●Support the mother and baby in experiencing less pain and anxiety.
●Contribute to reducing birth interventions.
●Act as a preventative measure for perinatal mood disorders.
●Revisit our own birth story, healing inherited patterns and unconscious fears.
●Build a relationship that transcends birth — a lifelong attunement.
●Craft personal welcome rituals and songs to invite our babies into life and communication
●Include partners and family in fourth-trimester preparation, weaving community around the new soul and mother/baby dyad physiological needs.
You’ll leave with:
●A strong bond with your baby that begins before birth and deepens after.
●Daily practices for communication, connection, building capacity to be with your emotions and
learn how to differentiate with your baby.
●Labyrinth of Birth mindfulness practice to support you and your baby during labour.
●Understanding of stages of birth from the lens of prenatal and perinatal psychology —from babies
perspective
●A personalized Postpartum Plan co-created with your support circle.
●Guidance in Placenta medicine (when to cut the cord and why, encapsulation, tinctures, and
burying ritual).
●A renewed trust in your own intuitive knowing as a mother and as a woman.
●Access to information about physiological postpartum care — baby physiological needs, sleep, eat and cry.
●Support through the first 8 weeks postpartum, independent of birth type (vaginal, belly birth, premature, or
pregnancy loss).
●The possibility of a shared circle of women, for connection, reflection, and support.
creating a more compassionate world starts in the womb.
thomas verney
structure
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Weekly online call (60 min sessions) always on the same day and hour as a commitment to your baby to learn about consistency and presence. Yes they do learn, and there’s enough research about on this mater done by Dr. Raffai.
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In-person (if local, 60 min sessions three times a month).
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Each week we enter a new mythic chapter tending to the needs and desire of each women and her own circumstances.
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The Final Weeks Before Birth
Beginning at week 36 of pregnancy, we enter a more focused rhythm of preparation.
6 sessions are held every second or third day, supporting you and your baby in conscious transition toward birth. These sessions deepen attunement, reduce anxiety, and help mother and baby align for labour together.
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Postpartum Integration (First 8 Weeks)
In the weeks following birth, we enter a phase of integration, recovery, and deep bonding.
8 weekly online postpartum sessions for emotional support, integration of the birth experience, and guidance as mother and baby adjust
8 in-person postpartum home sessions (3 hours each) for families living nearby — supporting physical, hormonal, mental recovery & bonding with your baby and orienting your support system around your needs.
Why This Matters
Because prenatal bonding is the foundation of lifelong health.
Because babies are conscious, sentient beings who remember how they were received.
Because parenting begins before birth.
Because postpartum is one of the most important transitions in a woman’s life, deeply influencing her long-term health and wellbeing.
When a mother tends to her baby’s soul during pregnancy,
the transition into life becomes smoother, gentler, more coherent.
No matter the birth outcome — love, communication, and trust are already established.
This is not only for mothers,
THIS IS for our babies.
IN-PERSON CONTINUUM
€970 / month (VAT included)
SUPPORT DURING PREGNANCY
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Weekly online sessions (4-5 per month)
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3 in-person bodywork sessions per month
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Stages of Birth & Labyrinth of Birth Workshop
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Planning for the Fourth Trimester Workshop
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Personalised Postpartum Plan
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Placenta Medicine Workshop - physiological and spiritual understanding of the placenta
FINAL WEEKS BEFORE BIRTH
Beginning at week 36 of pregnancy we enter a more focused rhythm of preparation.
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6 prenatal bonding online sessions held every second or third day
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Sessions conclude 10 days before your estimated due date
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Bodywork sessions continue to be available throughout pregnancy until birth.
SUPPORT AFTER BIRTH
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7 Postpartum home sessions (3 hours each) for mother and baby
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1 Closing of the Bones ceremony (3.5 hours)
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8 weekly online postpartum sessions for emotional support, integration of the birth experience,
and guidance as mother and baby
continue their bonding & adjustment
after birth.
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Placenta Medicine (if the family wishes)
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Prints, encapsulation, tinctures, oils, creams, burial ritual.
ONLINE CONTINUUM
€520 / month (VAT included)
SUPPORT DURING PREGNANCY
-
Weekly online prenatal sessions (4-5 per month)
-
Stages of Birth & Labyrinth of Birth Workshop
-
Planning for the Fourth Trimester Workshop
-
Personalised Postpartum Plan
-
Placenta Medicine Workshop — physiological and spiritual understanding of the placenta
FINAL WEEKS BEFORE BIRTH
-
6 prenatal bonding online sessions held every second or third day
-
Sessions conclude 10 days before the estimated due date.
SUPPORT AFTER BIRTH
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8 weekly online postpartum sessions for emotional support, integration of the birth experience, and guidance as mother and baby adjust after birth.
This option does not include bodywork or postpartum home sessions.
Possible add ons:
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Placenta Medicine - prints, encapsulation, tinctures, oils, creams, burial ritual
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Travel Postpartum Support - Home Sessions for families living outside my area. Travel and accommodation costs are calculated separately. Each journey is tailored to your family needs and recovery rhythm.
investment
This is a continuum of care, not isolated sessions.
Payment
In-person support
Depending on when we begin, we journey together for 5 -7 or more.
You can:
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Pay in full at the beginning — and if your pregnancy ends up being shorter than expected, the remaining support will be extended into your postpartum period.
OR -
Begin with the first month’s payment together, with the final 8 weeks of postpartum support.
This corresponds to the initial postpartum period and includes:
– 8 weekly online session (1 hour each)
– 7 in-person home sessions (3 hours each)
– One Closing of the Bones Ceremony (3.5 hours), including homemade bone broth prepared for you
Total investment: €4,400 (VAT included).
postpartum always follows birth.
it is not an optional addition —
it is an integral part of this journey.
Online Continuum
This journey is also available fully online for families who do not live close to me.
Investment
€520 / month (VAT included)
Includes all workshops, online prenatal support and 8 online weekly postpartum sessions.
This journey is held entirely online.
I am happy to support you in finding a trusted body-based practitioner near you for pregnancy support and to help you connect with a postpartum care provider aligned with the same philosophy of care.
Online Payment Structure
Depending on when we begin during your pregnancy, we will journey together for 5-7 or more.
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To begin this journey, the minimum commitment is the first month’s payment together with the final 8 weeks of postpartum support.
or
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Pay in full at the beginning — and if your pregnancy ends up being shorter than expected, the remaining support will be extended into your postpartum period.
Total initial investment: €1,560 (VAT included).
next steps
If you feel called to begin this journey,
you can book a Connection Call here to meet, feel into the work and sense if it is aligned for you.
After our first call, you’ll receive a detailed intake questionnaire, and together we will plan the day and hour of our weekly sessions.
This is a commitment to your baby — calls will always be on the same day and time until 10 days before your expected due date.
And this is my commitment to you and your baby: to walk beside you in presence, devotion and reverence.
Because we can only change the world when we change the way babies are born (Michel Odent) —
and how mothers and babies are tended during the whole process of pregnancy, birth, postpartum and beyond.
mythical parenting - intensive support
For women who desire a deeper level of care during pregnancy and the transition into motherhood, I offer a very small number of Intensive Support Containers each year.
Within this container you receive direct access to me four days per week, allowing bodywork sessions as often as needed within those days so the care can follow the rhythms of your body, pregnancy and after birth.
You will also have WhatsApp support for guidance and integration, so questions, emotions,
or physical changes can be supported as they arise.
This level of care creates a close working relationship where you and your baby are accompanied continuously throughout pregnancy and into the early postpartum period.
Because this container requires significant presence and availability,
I work with only a very small number of families each year in this way.
If you feel called to explore this level of support, click below to inquire via email.
hi, i´m catarina lapão
I am devoted to supporting women through the vulnerable and powerful thresholds of life and death.
For over 12 years I have worked as a bodyworker, and for the past 5 years my work has been dedicated specifically to mothers, babies, and the ones who left this world too early.
I am a fierce advocate for bodywork as medicine. Mothers and babies deserve skilled, therapeutic touch from the very beginning.
When we tend to a mother — physically, emotionally, and relationally — we protect her lifelong health, and the health of her baby.
I believe that babies are sentient, and that the body is born from the soul.
How we welcome a baby matters — not only in the intensity of birth, but in the integration that follows. When their presence is honored and their rhythms respected, we influence not only one family, but generations.
I advocate for extending the golden hour into the golden month and beyond.
Supporting a baby’s soul begins with supporting their physiology. It means organizing life around their rhythms. It means protecting the mother who protects them.
This is the heart of my work.
some resources for you:
For those who feel called to explore more, there are a growing number of English resources available:
Umbilical Cord of the Soul book first published in Hungarian in 2002, now available in English (2023);
Interview and writings by Gerhard Schroth;
Resources from Christa Balkenhol-Wright’s Academy to Promote Prenatal Attachment (with whom i´ve learned about prenatal bonding alongside the PPNE from APPPAH ;
Podcasts about Prenatal Bonding such as A Mother’s Natural Instincts and A More Natural Life;
Revillaging: Maternal, Cultural, and Planetary Wellness are One with Rachelle Garcia Seliga — Mythic Medicine
gratitude for this work
This body of work is born from my own lived experiences, from my desire and search for meaning,
and from the longing to be supported in a society that has been built to create & perpetuate illness.
It comes from finding my way out of my own chaos, listening for what is true, and remembering what it means to belong to life.
In deep gratitude to the most important teachers and people who have held me, guided me and passed down these teachings:
Rachelle Garcia Seliga, Silvia Urbani, Hugh Milne, Laura Torres,
Ray Castellino, Pam England, Rachael Maddox, Tammy Lynn Kent,
Lynn Schulte, Christa Balkenhol-Wright, Amy Wright Glenn,
Francis Weller, Julio Alonzo, Michelle Silva & the fellowship of the Heart,
Isabel Mercedes, Vera van Os, Katja Markelova & Cristy Duce, & so many others.
may this work continue its lineage through every mother,
baby and family it touches.
