Scientology couple John Travolta and Kelly Preston urged pregnant Katie Holmes, Tom Cruise's future wife, to have a "silent birth".

Preston explains: "It's just because everything in moments of pain is really recorded and you want to have that (the birth) peaceful and clear of sort of suggestions or different words that can then affect them (babies) in their future."

According to the questionable ideologies of L. Ron Hubbard, the Founder of the Scientology organization, a silent birth implicates the absence of any kind of noise, whether it's music, chatting or expressions of pain from the mother.

"Maintain silence in the presence of birth to save both the sanity of the mother and the child and safeguard the home to which they will go. And the maintaining of silence does not mean a volley of 'Sh's', for those make stammerers."

An experienced obstetrician (senior doctor ) said of Hubbard's instruction: "This quote is illogical. A human is a social being, dependent upon his environment from the start. Doesn't the baby hear its mother's heartbeat while still in the womb, along with her voice and the noises in the environment, not only pleasant but unpleasant, and then everything is supposed to be silent at birth? That would be scary indeed!"

Scientologists prefer to give birth at home and banish neo-natal screening and conventional medicine. Home births also accommodate the Scientology's "silent birth" rules about not talking to a newborn baby for a period of one week. While Scientology teaches that this reduces the trauma associated with a baby's birth, this is actually another method to destroy family bonds.

"Next, the delivery itself should carry as little anaesthesic as possible, be as calm and no-talk as possible and the baby should not be bathed or chilled, but should be wrapped somewhat tightly in a warm blanket, very soft, and then left alone for a day or so."

According to Doctors Margaret Singer, Michael Langone and Steve Hassen, family bonds are deliberately weakened and destroyed in cults because members are supposed to support the cult above all else.

A common cult ideology says that a victim's life and family were horribly dysfunctional until they joined the cult. The cult solves all the victim's problems associated with the family by diminishing the family in every way possible.

According to David Chamberlain, failure to bond can indeed have painful consequences. An unexplainable lack of closeness hovers over their daily relationships like a shadow. Intimacy and genuine friendship seems beyond reach.

As much as they try to please each other, a gap still separates them. Other kinds of damage can be subtle. Doctors Klaus and Kennell discovered mothers, separated from babies for an extended period after birth, were left wondering if they really did have a child: the birth was more like a dream. They doubted the hospital had given them the correct baby.