How the First Nine Months Shape the Rest of Your Life
By Annie Murphy Paul Wednesday, Sep. 22, 2010
What makes us the way we are? Why are some people predisposed to be anxious, overweight or asthmatic? How is it that some of us are prone to heart attacks, diabetes or high blood pressure?
There's a list of conventional answers to these questions. We are the way we are because it's in our genes. We turn out the way we do because of our childhood experiences. Or our health and well-being stem from the lifestyle choices we make as adults.
But there's another powerful source of influence you may not have considered: your life as a fetus. The nutrition you received in the womb; the pollutants, drugs and infections you were exposed to during gestation; your mother's health and state of mind while she was pregnant with you — all these factors shaped you as a baby and continue to affect you to this day.
This is the provocative contention of a field known as fetal origins, whose pioneers assert that the nine months of gestation constitute the most consequential period of our lives, permanently influencing the wiring of the brain and the functioning of organs such as the heart, liver and pancreas. In the literature on the subject, which has exploded over the past 10 years, you can find references to the fetal origins of cancer, cardiovascular disease, allergies, asthma, hypertension, diabetes, obesity, mental illness. At the farthest edge of fetal-origins research, scientists are exploring the possibility that intrauterine conditions influence not only our physical health but also our intelligence, temperament, even our sanity.
As a journalist who covers science, I was intrigued when I first heard about fetal origins. But two years ago, when I began to delve more deeply into the field, I had a more personal motivation: I was newly pregnant. If it was true that my actions over the next nine months would affect my offspring for the rest of his life, I needed to know more.
Of course, no woman who is pregnant today can escape hearing the message that what she does affects her fetus. She hears it at doctor's appointments, sees it in the pregnancy guidebooks: Do eat this, don't drink that, be vigilant but never stressed. Expectant mothers could be forgiven for feeling that pregnancy is just a nine-month slog, full of guilt and devoid of pleasure, and this research threatened to add to the burden.
But the scientists I met weren't full of dire warnings but of the excitement of discovery — and the hope that their discoveries would make a positive difference. Research on fetal origins is prompting a revolutionary shift in thinking about where human qualities come from and when they begin to develop. It's turning pregnancy into a scientific frontier: the National Institutes of Health embarked last year on a multidecade study that will examine its subjects before they're born. And it makes the womb a promising target for prevention, raising hopes of conquering public-health scourges like obesity and heart disease through interventions before birth.
This article is about how kids are with bad health. It says that most of the bad health ether happened when they were kids or when they were in the mother womb. It could of happen by the mother because they are in bad health there selves. It is all in the genes and or in there healthy choices. That is all that this article is about. I do believe in this article aswell.
ReplyDeleteThe problems that we inherit come from the genes of our mother and father and what kind of environment we grow up in. The problems doesn’t necessary involve being in the womb for nine months. Of course pregnant people have to be aware of what they can and can’t eat. I think how kids/babies turn out depends on only the genes and the environment they grew up in.
ReplyDeleteI believe that this article was talking about how the babies are affected in the womb with what they're mother does while pregnant with them. What the mother eats, the baby eats, what the mother drinks so does the child. So how the mother acts during her 9 months pregnant effects the baby as they grow and mature in the womb. It's also in their genes when they being made up, so if the mom has asthma, more than likely so will the baby, or if diabetes runs' in the family more than likely the fetus will be born with diabetes. That's basically everything that the article was discussing.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading this article, even though there have been scientific studies to prove this is true, I don’t agree with it. I think when you are around the ages 2 and 3 is the time when you actually realize what’s going on. Once you understand something it has a different effect on you. For example, if a young baby was yelled at they would just cry because they were scared. But if a 2 or 3 year old was yelled at they would know that they were in trouble. That’s my opinion on this topic.
ReplyDeletethe article basically described how life is as a fetus. also it talks about how a woman's life is when pregnant. they basically get the hole parenting thing all over again. people are constantly saying do this and do do that. to me it sounds like women get a new set of parents when they are pregnant. i say that because after they are raised and they get pregnant their parents then try to parent them on being a parent. its just a never ending cycle.
ReplyDeleteThe reason that we are the way we are because the treatment when inside your mother. Depending on if they follow the direction of not drinking or eating certain things or if drugs are expose to the fetus or other things that mothers do during pregnancy that there not suppose to. The reason for a child becoming obesity, diabetics, or mental illness. Some people are prone to heart attacks because either it runs in the family or also because the stress the mother is going through.
ReplyDeleteHuman development is a very unique but sometimes things happen during that time period that could cause problems. It did not shock me to know that what a woman does when she is pregnant affects her baby. I also had prior knowledge about the long term birth affects such as diabetes in babies before birth. If a mother or father has a birth defect or a trait in their genes from generations before them then the baby is automatically prone to it. Over the course of 9 months when a baby is develop if a mother becomes stressed and produces too much hormones it could stunt the baby’s development. I think this article very informational and future mothers should be warmed about all the little things that can harn their baby.
ReplyDeleteI think that this article made alot of sense to be perfectly honest. I think its important that mothers be aware of the true dangers they can cause their children in the womb. Babies are easily influence by anything so it's mno suprise about these facts. It makes all the sense in the world that who we become can be influenced even before we come into the world.
ReplyDeleteI disagree with this article because even though there are seeral scientist that have been studying this, I think that babies don't realize and get to understand things until they reach the age of 2 or 3. I say this because babies don't start to really get things until this age. If you do something to a baby they will just cry and not learn anything, but if you do it to an older child they will learn from what they did and learn not to do it anymore.
ReplyDeleteThis article is about why people are the way they are in connection with before they leave the mother's wound. They say alot of things are connected to the pre-birth period. Things like diabetes, asthma, and other things. This feild of study is called fetal origins. The mother can really determine in some cases if their child will be born healthy. Things like drugs and alcohol is the biggest factors. But other things will contribute to a childs state of birth like the mother's mind-set during pregnancy. I think this should be a topic that more people should discuss. I agree with this article and i really do think that what happens during pregnancy can determine who a person is.
ReplyDeleteThis article is about how our genes are what affect our life. Another thing that affects our entire life is the nine months of gestation. During that time our organs begin to form which is crucial because that is what the person will live with for the rest of their life. That is why doctors tell pregnant women to take caution and avoid certain things, their baby could be born with something that could affect them for the rest of their life.
ReplyDeleteI totally believe that what a mother does while pregnant will affect her baby for the rest of his/her life. What I didn’t know was that it could affect the babies’ sanity, but I did know that a mother could affect the baby physically and emotionally. For example the drugs that a mother takes while pregnant could cause harm to the baby.
ReplyDeleteWhat I want to know is how exactly are they supposed to go forth with the research because to get accurate results they probably and most likely have to experiment on way or the other? So will they have subjects and place them in blind conditions or are they going to get permission to use the babies in this experiment. This is a realistic and important matter but, how will the researcher go about this in an ethical way.
As a fetal I know my mom ate a lot of food and so that's what made me love food as much as I do. When my girl is pregnant I want her to still exercise and listen to good music so that my child is healthy and fit and loves music. I want my children to be very athletic so I will do different things like have my girl watch the game so that my baby can be athletic. I will try to take away all the stress from my baby moms by catering to her and not annoying her. I do believe that stress on the baby moms can affect the baby and bring on different disorders because the baby is developing in the mom while she is going through this and her body could affect it.
ReplyDeleteToo me, this article made a lot of since. After reading this article I found it very fascinating that the first nine months shape the rest of your life. I find it so fascinating because you’re not even born yet, but already the rest of your life is being shaped, I think that is amazing. After reading this article I will be sure to eat the right things, not drink the wrong things and par take in the right activities. I will not try and let stress overwhelm me when I’m pregnant because that can be the worst. Too much stress during pregnancies can cause major complications in the future for the baby so I will be sure to be aware of this if and when I’m pregnant.
ReplyDeleteI think that we are formed by how both we are raised and what happens inside the wound. The article expressed how many people are within the fetus growing up. I dont completly agree with the the article because I dont think it is soley based on what the mother does while within the wound. I think that partly it is formed when the child is growing up within adolescents.
ReplyDeleteThe nutrients that a mother gets, shapes the way the child will come out. So if the mother eats lots of junk food that will cause her child to come out overweight. And if a mother smoke weed that means the baby will have heart problems and possibly smoke weed. If a mother is depressed or go crazy that also means the baby will come to be anxious and probably stress too. So if you eat too much cheese does that mean your baby will come out to like cheese? And I’m just curious why do baby come out white? So it is very important that a mother takes care of herself well.
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