03: Programming Starts in the Womb: Reclaiming Birth as a Sacred Reparenting Act with Liz Nikac

In this episode of (re)Parenting Radio, Lisa Watson and co-host Isabella Clark talk with Liz Nikac—Registered Nurse, Certified Childbirth Educator, and Breastfeeding Counselor—about how our earliest experiences imprint the nervous system and shape the very “programs” we later reparent.

We explore how a baby adopts the mother’s nervous system in utero, why stress, fear, and medicalized narratives can seed lifelong patterns, and how education, breath, affirmations, advocacy, and compassionate support help rewrite the script—from conception to postpartum. This is reparenting at the root: honoring birth as a spiritual initiation while giving parents practical tools to create safety, sovereignty, and trust in the body.

In this conversation:

• The womb as the first classroom: how prenatal stress, safety, and attunement become early programming
• Dysregulation → adaptation → adult patterns (people-pleasing, hypervigilance, shutdown) we later reparent
• Breath, music, mindset, and affirmations as somatic reprogramming during labor
• Self-advocacy in medical settings (using your B.R.A.I.N.: Benefits, Risks, Alternatives, Intuition, No/Not now)
• Golden hour, delayed cord clamping, partner support, and nervous-system-first postpartum care
• Releasing guilt & stigma around C-sections and postpartum mental health—healing is not perfection; it’s repair

Reparenting takeaway: When we create nervous system safety around conception, pregnancy, birth, and postpartum, we interrupt inherited dysregulation and model regulated love—for ourselves and for generations to come.

🔗 CONNECT WITH LIZ NIKAC

• Instagram: @childbirthpreparin
• Website: fortheloveoflittleones.com
• Upcoming Resource: The New Parent Guide