Who is Looking After Our Kids?
CHAPTER 15
Prenatal Influences
This chapter is reproduced from the book, For Tomorrow's Children, A Manual for Future Parents, available from Foresight America, 5724 Clymer Road, Quakertown, Pa 18951
Effects of the mother's thoughts and emotions during pregnancy on the baby-to-be
Nowhere is the time-honored adage, "thoughts are things," more true than during the course of pregnancy, a creative period in which the baby-to-be is highly plastic or malleable to the thoughts and emotions of the mother. History abounds with examples that show that imprints of the mother's thoughts and deeply held feelings may later manifest, for good or for ill, as personality traits, inclinations, and talents in the offspring.
The first authentic work on this subject was published in 1902 by R. Swinburne Clymer, MD: Prenatal Culture. The book did not offer scientific evidence to validate the subject, but it did present the concept in clear language and provided much philosophical support for its acceptance. The text was recently republished and must be considered the classic work on this intriguing subject.
Prenatal testing
Many cast a skeptical eye on the concept of prenatal influence. Instances of probable prenatal influences, no matter how numerous or convincing, are dismissed as anecdotal, because there is no way they can meet the standard of the double blind study, the procedure that has become the accepted standard of scientific proof. The double blind study is valid in the study of drugs and chemicals, but it doesn't lend itself to our present subject. For this reason we must resort to other forms of analysis and testing. For that reason, we must resort to other forms of testing and analysis.
Such testing is being done, which should meet the most stringent criteria of scientific standards. An organization, the Pre- and Peri- Natal Psychology Association of North America (PPPANA), has been formed by psychiatrists and psychologists to study prenatal influences, to document them in a scientific manner, and to publish their findings. This is being done in the quarterly journal, Pre- and Peri-Natal Psychology Journal, published by Human Sciences Press, Inc., 233 Spring Street, New York NY, 10013-1578.
One of the founding members of PPPANA, Thomas Verny, MD, a psychiatrist in Toronto, Ontario, published a book, The Secret Life of the Unborn Child, in 1981. The book represents the first systematic study of prenatal influences with a review of published world literature dealing with the subject to that time. Some of the anecdotes cited in the book are fascinating and provocative.
One of the most striking stories is that of the Canadian Symphony Orchestra conductor, Boris Brott. On a radio program the interviewer asked how Brott became interested in music. After hesitating a moment, Brott replied, "You know, this may sound strange, but music has been a part of me since before birth." Somewhat puzzled, the interviewer asked him to explain.
"Well," said Brott, "as a young man, I was mystified by this unusual ability I had - to play certain pieces sight unseen. I'd be conducting a score for the first time and, suddenly, the cello line would jump out at me; I'd know the flow of the piece even before I turned the page of the score. One day I mentioned this to my mother, who is a professional cellist. I thought she'd be intrigued because it was always the cello line that was so distinct in my mind. She was; but when she heard what the pieces were, the mystery quickly solved itself. All the scores I knew sight unseen were ones she had played while she was pregnant with me."
Effect of stress on the unborn
Dr. Verny addressed the question of stress during pregnancy and its potential effect on the fetus. He quoted from studies which showed that women subjected to severe and continuous stress during pregnancy tended to bear children with physical and emotional problems. But there were notable exceptions, depending on how the mother felt about her unborn child.
One striking example was given by Verny:
It would be hard to imagine a more tumultuous pregnancy than the one a woman I'll call Susan endured. Husbandless - her spouse left her a few weeks after she learned she was expecting - and beset by constant financial problems, Susan had already encountered more than her share of difficulties when, in her sixth month, a precancerous cyst was found on one of her ovaries. Its immediate removal was urged, but when Susan was told that the required surgery would abort her child, she refused. In her mid-thirties., Susan believed this was her last opportunity to have a child and she desperately wanted it. "Nothing else mattered," she told me later. "I would have risked anything to have my baby." On some level, I feel her child sensed that desire. Andrea, as the child was named, was born healthy and, at this writing, two years later, is a normal, happy, well-adjusted child.
In short, then, while the external stresses a woman faces matter, what matters most is the way she feels about her unborn child. Her thoughts and feelings are the material out of which the unborn child fashions himself. When they are positive and nurturing, the child can, as Andrea did, withstand shocks from almost any quarter. But the fetus cannot be misled either. If he is good at sensing what is on his mother~s mind generally, he is even better at sensing her attitude towards him, as a group of ingeniously designed new psychologist studies show.
Dr. Verny cited a study of two thousand women followed through pregnancy and birth by Dr. Monika Lukesch, a psychologist at Constantine University in Frankfurt, West Germany. Dr. Lukesch concluded from her study that the mother's attitude had the single greatest effect on how an infant turned out. All her subjects were equally intelligent, and all had the same degree of prenatal care. The only major distinguishing factor was their attitudes towards their unborn children, and that turned out to have a critical effect on their infants. The children of accepting mothers, who looked forward to having a family, were much healthier, emotionally and physically, at birth and afterwards, than the offspring of the rejecting mothers.
The father's influence on the unborn
What about the father's influence? Dr. Verny said,
All evidence indicates that the quality of a woman s relationship with her husband or partner - whether she feels happy and secure or, alternately, ignored and threatened - has a decisive effect on her unborn child. Dr. Lukesch, for example, rates the quality of a woman s relationship with her spouse second only to her attitude toward being a mother in determining the infant outcome.
Dr. Verny quoted another worker, Dr. Dennis Stott, who rated bad marriages or relationships as among the greatest causes of emotional and physical damage in the womb. According to Stott, even such widely recognized dangers as physical illness, smoking, and the performance of back-breaking labor during pregnancy pose less of a risk to the unborn child. He found unhappy marriages produced children who as babies were five times more fearful and jumpy than the offspring of happy relationships. At ages four and five, Dr. Stott found them to be undersized, timid, and emotionally dependent on their mothers to an inordinate degree.
Dr. Verny observed,
It is also important to remember that a strong, nurturing mother- child bond can protect the fetus against even these very traumatic shocks.
Evidence of prenatal influence
The spring of 1989 issue of the Pre- and Peri-Natal Psychology Journal included a series of carefully documented studies presenting irrefutable evidence of prenatal influences at varying levels. In the editorial to the issue, Dr. Verny wrote:
The great majority of physicians, nurses, and psychologists simply do not believe that babies can feel, think, remember, or communicate. How do we get them to change their minds? Obviously, there is no simple answer to this question. The problem is that this need for scientific proof, which the health professionals profess to seek, really camouflages a complex web of unconscious fears. The obstetricians of Vienna in the 1860s would not, could not, comprehend that they were responsible for spreading puerperal (childbed) fever by not washing their hands, and this drove Dr. lgnaz Semmelweiss to suicide. Today's health professionals once again resist what in a few years' time will be as much of a common sense notion as washing one s hands between patient examinations.
In a subsequent article, "The Scientific Basis of Pre- and Peri-natal Psychology, Part 1," Dr. Verny provided an extensive review of human and animal studies showing prenatal learning.
In the animal studies, Marion Diamond, a neuroanatomist at the University of California at Berkeley, placed pregnant rats in an environment with mazes and toys. For rats, mazes and toys involve learning, much as schooling does for children. These are called "enriched" environments. Offspring of enriched animals were found to have larger brains than the progeny of the control parents who were raised in plain cages. The offspring of the enriched animals also had larger levels of neurotransmitters and increase in glial cells (connecting fibers between brain cells). Furthermore, each succeeding generation had larger brain cortices. As Verny expressed it, "the enriched get richer."
In human studies, Donald Shetler, a professor music education at the University of Rochester, has studied the effect of music during pregnancy on infant development. Shetler evaluates the musical response of newborns by looking at attention span and body movements. Later he measures the child's ability to imitate rhythms and vocal sounds and to manipulate such sound-making objects as small bells. The sessions in Shetler's classroom-a music laboratory of tiny xylophones, drums, and musical toys - were videotaped for later analysis.
Shetler reports that infants exposed to music while in the womb show "remarkable attention behaviors, imitate accurately sounds made by adults, and structure vocalization earlier than controls" (babies not subjected to music before birth). He believes that prenatal music may, in fact, give babies a head start.
Dr. Verny's studies include psychiatric and other aspects of prenatal and childhood care: What are a child's fears? expectations? How did they develop? What corrections are necessary? How can the unborn and newborn child be better prepared for life experiences? In focusing on causes of early childhood problems, his study forced him to look not only at the impressions a child receives as a fetus but also at the environment in which the child was conceived. These findings, in turn, led him to recognize that the most important time in a child's life is the period up to a year before he is conceived. During this time parents must sort out and work out their problems and prepare themselves for motherhood and fatherhood.
A mother's feelings
The fetus, during pregnancy, is a highly plastic being, molded in large measure by the thoughts and feelings of the mother. If these are of a positive nature, they may manifest in later life as a relatively healthy and well-adjusted individual with increased intelligence and talents. If of a negative nature, they may result in later mental and physical health problems.
The single most important factor is how the mother feels about the unborn baby. If it is an accepted and desired pregnancy, almost any adversity may be overcome for the well-being of the baby. If it is an unwanted or indifferent pregnancy, the reverse may obtain.
The second most important factor is the relationship of the mother with her husband. If this is warm and supportive, the results will tend to be favorable.
Life's stresses, no matter how great, need not have an adverse effect if the mother carries a warm and nurturing feeling for her unborn infant.
Heredity is of course important, but in some instances prenatal influences, combined with good health care, may outweigh heredity. It is an indisputable fact that many great persons throughout history have been born to humble parents with limited intellectual capacities.