Fetal Development Quotes

The National Institute of Mental Health spends only $4.3 million on fetal prevention research, all of it for studies in mice, from its yearly $1.4 billion budget,” Freedman noted recently. “Yet half of young school shooters have symptoms of developing schizophrenia.

To replace wiring diagrams, Marcus suggests a better analogy: The brain is like a book, the first draft of which is written by the genes during fetal development. No chapters are complete at birth, and some are just rough outlines waiting to be filled in during childhood. But not a single chapter—be it on sexuality, language, food preferences, or morality—consists of blank pages on which a society can inscribe any conceivable set of words.

[In reference to cases of testicular feminization]: “The incredible lesson about our sexual biology is that all men at one point in their fetal development have the capacity to be women. Moreover the body is programmed to develop as a female unless it sees and recognizes specific biochemical signals such as testosterone and anti-mullerian factor that tell it to develop as a male.

Remarkably, the fetal brain generates far more neurons than are found in the adult. Why? During late fetal development, there is a dramatic competition in much of the brain, with winning neurons being the ones that migrate to the correct location and maximize synaptic connections to other neurons. And neurons that don’t make the grade? They undergo “programmed cell death”—genes are activated that cause them to shrivel and die, their materials then recycled.

About half of patients with pure anxiety disorders develop major depression within five years. Insofar as depression and anxiety are genetically determined, they share a single set of genes (which are tied to the genes for alcoholism). Depression exacerbated by anxiety has a much higher suicide rate than depression alone, and it is much harder to recover from. “If you’re having several panic attacks every day,” says Ballenger, “it’s gonna bring Hannibal to his knees. People are beaten into a pulp, into a fetal position in bed.

Again as during fetal development, synapses that underlie cognitive and other abilities stick around if they’re used but wither if they’re not. The systematic elimination of unused synapses, and thus unused circuits, presumably results in greater efficiency for the neural networks that are stimulated—the networks that support, in other words, behaviors in which the adolescent is actively engaged. Just as early childhood seems to be a time of exquisite sensitivity to the environment (remember the babies who dedicate auditory circuits only to the sounds of their native language, eliminating those for phonemes that they do not hear), so may adolescence. The teen years are, then, a second chance to consolidate circuits that are used and prune back those that are not—to hard-wire an ability to hit a curve ball, juggle numbers mentally, or turn musical notation into finger movements almost unconsciously. Says Giedd, “Teens have the power to determine their own brain development, to determine which connections survive and which don’t, [by] whether they do art, or music, or sports, or videogames.

of now, the main difference has been found in the HAR1 (human accelerated region 1), a segment of a recently discovered RNA gene. The RNA that is expressed in early development (HAR1F) is specific to the reelin-producing Cajal-Retzius cells in the brain. HAR1F comes to expression together with reelin in the seventeenth to nineteenth weeks of fetal development, a crucial stage in the formation of the six-layered cerebral cortex. The mutations in this human gene are probably over a million years old and could have played a crucial role in the emergence of modern humankind. Throughout our evolution, an enormous

The epic that is brain development involves not just growth, but death. During gestation, the fetal brain grows about twice as many neurons as it will eventually need. This surplus of juvenile neurons is culled and winnowed to what the maturing brain needs; the misfits that aren’t picked to stay on the squad, so to speak, simply wither and die.

For Freedman, prevention is more than just good medicine; it’s common sense. Billions of dollars are spent each year on developing drugs to treat the symptoms of mental illness after it already manifests. What if some of that money were spent on prevention, not just in the womb but in childhood? Think of all the young people who develop mental illness out of sight of anyone who can help them. What if some of those breakdowns—even suicides—could be prevented, by shoring up the mind’s vulnerability before things get worse? “The National Institute of Mental Health spends only $4.3 million on fetal prevention research, all of it for studies in mice, from its yearly $1.4 billion budget,” Freedman noted recently. “Yet half of young school shooters have symptoms of developing schizophrenia.

Importantly, maternal stress impacts fetal development. There are indirect routes—for example, stressed people consume less healthy diets and consume more substances of abuse. More directly, stress alters maternal blood pressure and immune defenses, which impact a fetus. Most important, stressed mothers secrete glucocorticoids, which enter fetal circulation and basically have the same bad consequences as in stressed infants and children. Glucocorticoids accomplish this through organizational effects on fetal brain construction and decreasing levels of growth factors, numbers of neurons and synapses, and so on. Just as prenatal testosterone exposure generates an adult brain that is more sensitive to environmental triggers of aggression, excessive prenatal glucocorticoid exposure produces an adult brain more sensitive to environmental triggers of depression and anxiety.

Nevertheless I’d like to end this chapter on a positive note about how research into how humans acquire language is leading to better informed, conscious parents. Though there has been a cultural misunderstanding that a baby’s brain is not developed enough to learn and comprehend language, nothing could be further from the truth. The acquisition of language plays a fundamental role in exercising an infant’s brain and shaping its organization, neural connectivity, and intelligence. Research on the fetal brain’s ability to acquire and download environmental experiences in the womb reveal that the nervous system’s sensory input mechanisms, such as hearing, develop long before the system’s motor outputs—in this case, coordinated muscular control needed for speech. Consequently, the brain’s potential to learn and understand language is not dependent on the infant’s ability to speak.

The expression "fee thulumaatin thalaathin," translated into English as "a threefold darkness," indicates three dark regions involved during the development of the embryo. These are: a) The darkness of the abdomen b) The darkness of the womb c) The darkness of the placenta As we have seen, modern biology has revealed that the embryological development of the baby takes place in the manner revealed in the verse, in three dark regions. Moreover, advances in the science of embryology show that these regions consist of three layers each. The lateral abdominal wall comprises three layers: the external oblique, the internal oblique, and transverses abdominis muscles.91 Similarly, the wall of the womb also consists of three layers: the epimetrium, the myometrium and the endometrium.92 Similarly again, the placenta surrounding the embryo also consists of three layers: the amnion (the internal membrane around the foetus), the chorion (the middle amnion layer) and the decidua (outer amnion layer.)93 It is also pointed out in this verse that a human being is created in the mother's womb in three distinct stages. Indeed, modern biology has also revealed that the baby's embryological development takes place in three distinct regions in the mother's womb. Today, in all the embryology textbooks studied in departments of medicine, this subject is taken as an element of basic knowledge. For instance, in Basic Human Embryology, a fundamental reference text in the field of embryology, this fact is stated as follows: The life in the uterus has three stages: pre-embryonic; first two and a half weeks, embryonic; until the end of the eight week, and fetal; from the eight week to labor.

gestation. High-intensity levels can cause fetal death or malformations, especially of the brain and skull. These effects are not surprising, since the exposures also substantially elevate the animals’ body temperature. Lower intensities do not cause heating and have generally been found to produce no harmful effects. In any case, the levels of radio- or microwave exposure in these animal experiments are well above those to which most women are normally exposed. However, there are some occupations that involve exposure to microwaves or radio waves at intensities much higher than the communication frequencies in the air all around us. The power of electromagnetic radiation decreases exponentially with distance, which means that its intensity is considerably higher at the site of generation—on top of a radio tower, for instance—than even a short distance away. People who

Marcus suggests a better analogy: The brain is like a book, the first draft of which is written by the genes during fetal development. No chapters are complete at birth, and some are just rough outlines waiting to be filled in during childhood. But not a single chapter—be it on sexuality, language, food preferences, or morality—consists of blank pages on which a society can inscribe any conceivable set of words.

Women came to Dr. Tiller from around the country for abortions because of extreme fetal anomalies and severe maternal health complications that developed after the sixth month of pregnancy.

Our bodies have three types of immunity:   Infant Immunity Innate Immunity Acquired Immunity, or Humoral immunity   First of all there is infant immunity, the one you were born with. About the middle of the second trimester of your development, which would be around 20 weeks, some of your mother’s antibodies passed across the placental barrier into your blood stream. As far as modern science knows, in your mother’s womb, your developing body is completely sterile. Your blood is clean and so is your gut, free from any bacterium or virus. You will not encounter them, for the most part, until you are born. So in the second half of your fetal development these antibodies, which you received from your mother, are floating in your blood stream and will be ready to act when you take your first breath.   You received these from your mother because your body will not have the ability to make these antibodies until you are around 12 months of age - this is important to know. After six months, the mother’s antibodies you were born with begin to decrease as your own infant immunity begins to strengthen. This is why you rarely hear of infectious diseases like diphtheria, measles, and polio ever bothering an infant in the first sixth months of their life, unless this beautiful orchestra is somehow disrupted by outside influences such as antibiotics and/or other medicines, heavy metals, environmental toxins, and especially vaccines at any time during the first year of life. The thing to remember here is babies don’t have the ability to create antibodies until around the 12th month. So why are we injecting virus’ into their little bodies?   Any honest immunologist, communicable disease specialist, or public health official will tell you why babies are vaccinated prior to one year of age. It is simply to train the parents to bring their children into the doctor’s office for inoculations.

The sensory cortex is arranged in a specific pattern forming a corresponding "map" of the body (see the homunculus in Fig. 23-1). Pain in the right hand is perceived at its specific spot on the left cortex map. Some organs are absent from the brain map such as the heart, liver, or spleen. You know you have one but you have no "felt image" of it. Pain originating in these organs is referred because no felt image exists in which to have pain. Pain is felt "by proxy" by another body part that does have a felt image. For example, pain in the heart is referred to the chest, shoulder, and left arm, which were its neighbors in fetal development. Pain originating in the spleen is felt on the top of the left shoulder.

When pregnant women scoop up cat litter and accidentally breathe in the particles, the parasite can find its way to their placentas. Like viruses, it can damage placental cells and cause them to commit suicide. The resulting condition, called toxoplasmosis, can lead to fetal infection, miscarriage, congenital disease, or disability later in life. This is why many pregnant women get their partners to empty the cat box for nine months.

Endometriosis Endometriosis is a painful condition in which bits of the endometrium (uterine lining) grow outside your uterus. These are called endometriosis lesions. Chocolate cysts The most common site for endometriosis lesions is the ovaries. This growth is referred to as an endometrioma or chocolate cyst. Endometriosis lesions also grow on Fallopian tubes, pelvic ligaments, and on the outside of your uterus, bowel, and bladder. Actually, they can grow anywhere—even inside your nose. Endometriosis lesions are sensitive to estrogen, so they swell and bleed with every menstrual cycle. Eventually, this causes pain, scar tissue, and heavy periods with large clots. Endometriosis can also impair fertility. What Causes Endometriosis? How does endometrial tissue ends up outside the uterus? There are a couple of theories. One theory is that menstrual fluid enters the pelvis via retrograde flow through the Fallopian tubes. This is not likely to be the correct explanation because retrograde flow occurs in most women, yet only a few women develop endometriosis. A second theory is that the endometrial tissue is laid down before birth—during your own fetal development. The tissue then lies dormant until it is activated by your hormones at puberty. Whatever the original source of the endometriosis lesions, your immune system is a big part of the problem. Your immune system produces inflammatory cytokines and autoantibodies that inflame endometriosis lesions and promote their growth. Without that inflammation, you are unlikely to suffer the condition of endometriosis (although you may still have dormant endometriosis lesions in your pelvis). Researchers have come to view endometriosis not as a hormonal condition, but as an autoimmune disease.

We enter gradually into the third symbolic pregnancy, the last of this year of reincarnation, and the most perilous. In the first symbolic pregnancy, the emphasis was on the beginning of the pregnancy, fertilization and development of the embryo. In the second symbolic pregnancy, which is not complete, the focus was on the middle of the pregnancy and fetal development, as well as his fight, which begins around the fourth month. In this third symbolic pregnancy, the emphasis is on the exit. The exit of the fetus bathed in this adrenaline and this force from the gods, this vital energy, but also the exist of the ancestor from his tomb, for the parallel is obvious.

much longer-lasting adverse effect of the pandemic: the fact that Americans who were in utero during the pandemic had, over the course of their lives, reduced educational attainment, higher rates of physical disability, and lower income relative to those who went through fetal development immediately before or after.119 Those born at the crests of the three waves also had higher lifetime risk from respiratory and cardiovascular diseases.120 Similar impacts on fetal development have also been found for other countries, including Brazil, Italy, Norway, Sweden,121 Switzerland, and Taiwan.122 There is also some evidence that the Spanish flu eroded social trust in the countries most adversely affected.123

Cultures have different standards of beauty, but research suggests that some aesthetic preferences are shared by most people. Humans tend to like symmetry. While Moalem emphasizes our power to influence our own gene expression, he also has a determinist streak, arguing that our faces and "the genetic workmanship that went into our fetal development" are closely linked. Humans evolved to find certain facial traits desirable, he argues, because they "provided the fastest way of assessing, ranking, and relating to the people around us" and they "divulge our developmental and genetic history. Your face can also tell us a lot about your brain.

Trained Obstetrician and Gynaecologist in Dubai Dr Elsa de Menezes Fernandes is a UK trained Obstetrician and Gynaecologist. She completed her basic training in Goa, India, graduating from Goa University in 1993. After Residency, she moved to the UK, where she worked as a Senior House Officer in London at the Homerton, Southend General, Royal London and St. Bartholomew’s Hospitals in Obstetrics and Gynaecology. She completed five years of Registrar and Senior Registrar training in Obstetrics and Gynaecology in London at The Whittington, University College, Hammersmith, Ealing and Lister Hospitals and Gynaecological Oncology at the Hammersmith and The Royal Marsden Hospitals. During her post-graduate training in London she completed Membership from the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. In 2008 Dr Elsa moved to Dubai where she worked as a Consultant Obstetrician and Gynaecologist at Mediclinic City Hospital until establishing her own clinic in Dubai Healthcare City in March 2015. She has over 20 years specialist experience. Dr Elsa has focused her clinical work on maternal medicine and successfully achieved the RCOG Maternal Medicine Special Skills Module. She has acquired a vast amount of experience working with high risk obstetric patients and has worked jointly with other specialists to treat patients who have complex medical problems during pregnancy. During her training she gained experience in Gynaecological Oncology from her time working at St Bartholomew’s, Hammersmith and The Royal Marsden Hospitals in London. Dr Elsa is experienced in both open and laparoscopic surgery and has considerable clinical and operative experience in performing abdominal and vaginal hysterectomies and myomectomies. She is also proficient in the technique of hysteroscopy, both diagnostic and operative for resection of fibroids and the endometrium. The birth of your baby, whether it is your first or a happy addition to your family, is always a very personal experience and Dr Elsa has built a reputation on providing an experience that is positive and warmly remembered. She supports women’s choices surrounding birth and defines her role in the management of labour and delivery as the clinician who endeavours to achieve safe motherhood. She is a great supporter of vaginal delivery. Dr Elsa’s work has been published in medical journals and she is a member of the British Maternal and Fetal Medicine Society. She was awarded CCT (on the Specialist Register) in the UK. Dr Elsa strives to continue her professional development and has participated in a wide variety of courses in specialist areas, including renal diseases in pregnancy and medical complications in pregnancy.

Starting in the womb, the developing brain begins to store parts of our life experience. Fetal brain development can be influenced by a host of factors including mother’s stress; drug, alcohol, and nicotine intake; diet; and patterns of activity. During the first nine months, development is explosive, at times reaching a rate of twenty thousand new neurons “born” each second. (In comparison, an adult may, on a good day, create seven hundred new neurons.)

Starting in the womb, the developing brain begins to store parts of our life experience. Fetal brain development can be influenced by a host of factors including mother’s stress; drug, alcohol, and nicotine intake; diet; and patterns of activity.

Mothers not only pass the harms of endocrine-disrupting chemicals on to their fetuses but on to even more distant generations. When a mother is exposed to EDCs, so too are her fetus's germ cells, which develop into eggs or sperm. "It's thought that during that exposure, the chemical can target those germ cells and do what we call reprogramming, or making epigenetic changes," says Flaws. "That can be a permanent change that gets carried through generations, because those germ cells will eventually be used to make the next generation, and those fetuses will have abnormal germ cells that would then go on to make the next generation." In the mid-20th century, scientists documented this in women who took a synthetic form of estrogen, called diethylstilbestrol or DES, to prevent miscarriages.? The drug worked as intended, and the women gave birth to healthy babies. But once some of those children hit puberty, the girls developed vaginal and breast cancer. The boys developed testicular cancer, and some suffered abnormal development of the penis. Scientists called them DES daughters and sons. "When those DES daughters and sons had children, we now have DES granddaughters and grandsons, and a lot of them have increased risk of those same cancers and reproductive problems," says Flaws. "Even though it was their great-grandmother that took DES and they don't have any DES in their system-their germ cells have been reprogramming, and they're passing down some of these disease traits." And now toxicologists are gathering evidence that mothers are passing microplastics and nanoplastics complete with EDCs and other toxic substances- to their fetuses. In 2021, scientists announced that they'd found microplastics in human placentas for the first time, both on the fetal side and maternal side.Later that year, another team of researchers found the same, and they also tested meconium-a newborn's first feces and discovered microplastic there too. Children are consuming microplastics, then, before they're even born.

Regular consumption of fish has been shown to exert a strong anti-inflammatory effect, reduce risk for heart disease, help protect against asthma in children, moderate chronic lung disease, reduce the risk of breast and other cancers by stunting tumor growth, and ease the symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis and certain bone and joint diseases. Nursing and pregnant women enjoy a host of benefits from fish consumption, including support for fetal and early childhood brain and retinal development and a lowered risk of premature birth.

The timing of this effect of testosterone is crucial. If it comes too late in fetal development, the key neurons in the hypothalamus are already dead, and the brain is set on an irreversible female course. Other regulators of neuronal death may also have decisive behavioral effects, but none is as obvious as testosterone.

This means that most of the births they have seen were to women on epidurals lying still during labor, waiting for it all to be over. Seeing this kind of birth over and over again causes a subconscious imprint on the mind, and many women develop enough fear of the pains of childbirth that they block the messages their bodies give them about other positions they might take in labor. Others may simply fear diverging from the norm. A woman in the first stage of labor may find it beneficial to try several upright positions: standing, perhaps leaning on a counter or tray table; slow dancing with her partner; sitting while leaning forward or propped up with pillows; squatting; or sitting in a rocking chair. Sometimes one position suffices, but laboring women usually like to change from one position to another as labor progresses. One of the most effective labors I ever witnessed was that of a first-time mother giving birth to a very large baby. She moved through the first part of labor very efficiently by belly-dancing while putting as much of her weight as possible on a long staff she was holding to steady herself. She then pushed her baby out while leaning on the bed in a kneeling position. A woman’s position during labor and birth may affect her ability to breastfeed in a couple of ways. Dr. Roberto Caldeyro-Barcia, an Uruguayan obstetrician, was one of the first to scientifically investigate the effects of maternal position on labor. In 1979 he published a study now regarded as a classic, which demonstrated that mothers in a “vertical” position had thirty-six percent shorter opening stages of labor than “horizontal” women; the “vertical” women also reported less pain than the “horizontals.” Walking helped labor progress as well, because it brought the pressure of the baby’s head against the cervix, helping it to thin and open. And the “vertical” mothers’ babies’ heads were less apt to be extremely molded just after birth, indicating a somewhat smoother passage through the mother’s birth canal. Equally important, the babies of women who gave birth in upright positions had less fetal distress at birth.5 These factors all increase the chances that a woman will have a good early breastfeeding experience. Dr.

Wilderness leaders need to understand that there are varying normal responses to a crisis. Until there is time to regroup, behaviors may seem unusual when, in truth, they should be expected. Some behaviors that may emerge in the face of a crisis include: 1. Regression. Many grown people revert to an earlier stage of development. The theory is that, since their parents used to care for them as children, someone else may care for them now if they behave in a childlike manner. In particular, tantrums used to be very effective. Tantrum-like or very dependent behavior is not unusual. 2. Depression. Closing into one’s inner world is another common response to crisis. This is where some people find the sources of strength to cope with an emergency. This is characterized as a shutdown effect: fetal positioning, slumped shoulders, downcast eyes, arms crossed over the chest, and unwillingness or difficulty in communicating. 3. Aggression. Some people lash out, physically or emotionally, at threats, including the vague threat of an emergency. High adrenaline levels may intensify the response, and so may the feelings of frustration, anger, and fear that commonly surround unexpected circumstances. This response is characterized by explosive body language, including swinging fists and jumping up and down. What one should do about the various behaviors that surface during a crisis depends somewhat on the individual circumstances. As a general rule, open communication, acknowledgement of the emotional impact of the event, and a healthy dose of patience and tolerance can go far during resolution of the situation. Some basic procedures to consider in crisis management might include the following: 1. Engage the patient in a calm, rational discussion. You can start the patient down the trail that leads through the crisis. 2. Identify the specific concerns about which the patient is stressed. You both need to be talking about the same problems. 3. Provide realistic and optimistic feedback. You can help the patient return to objective thinking. 4. Involve the patient in solving the problem. You can help the patient and/or the patient can help you choose and implement a plan of action. Someone who completely loses control needs time to settle down to become an asset to the situation. Breaking through to someone who has lost control can be a challenge. Try repetitive persistence, a technique developed for telephone interrogation by emergency services dispatchers. Remain calm, but firm. Choose a positive statement that includes the person’s name, such as, “Todd, we can help once you calm down.” (An example of a negative statement would be, “Todd, we can’t help unless you settle down.”) Persistently repeat the statement with the same words in the same tone of voice. The irresistible force (you) will eventually overwhelm the immovable object (the out-of-control person). Surprisingly few repetitions are usually needed to get through to the patient, as long as the tone of voice remains calm. Letting frustration or other emotions creep into the tone of voice, or changing the message, can ruin the entire effort. Over time, the overwhelming responses that generated the reaction may occasionally resurface. This is normal. Without being judgmental or impatient, regain control through repetitive persistence. A crisis may bring out a humorous side (sometimes appropriately, sometimes not) among the group. When you wish to release the intensity surrounding a situation or crisis, appropriate laughter is one of the best methods. It should also be noted that many people cope just fine with emergency situations and unexpected circumstances. They are a source of strength and an example of model behavior for the others.

In the early stages of fetal development, it is difficult to tell the difference between human and chimp embryos. And yet, as they grow, they reach a point where differences become apparent, and from that point on, the differences become more and more obvious. For instance, the choice of what comes first, the brain or the skull. In human beings, the priority is brain first, skull next, because the emphasis is on maximizing the size of the brain. Any time you look at a newborn human infant you can see that the skull is not yet fully closed around the top of the still-growing brain. With chimpanzees, the priority is reversed: skull first, then brain—probably for reasons that have to do with the harsher environment into which the chimp is born. The command from the chimp’s sequence is, “Fill up this empty space with as much brain as you can.” But there’s only so much brain you can get in there before you can’t fill it up anymore. At any rate, it seems to be more important for a chimp to be born with a hard head than a big brain. There’s a similar interplay between an endless list of things: The thumb and the fingers, skeletal posture, certain bones being fully formed before certain muscular developments, etc.

I noticed that the more severe TMS sufferers had early disconnects with their mothers— some, so overwhelmed by the next fear of separation that they found themselves curled up in the fetal position, unable to move or speak. They had reverted back to an earlier, preverbal state of brain development. Most everyone I communicated with who was suffering from chronic pain had admitted that they had experienced early abandonment fear, or rejection. So there is some form of residual panic in TMSers from infancy —childhood separation anxiety, causing a chronicity of anxiety— most likely mother’s absence due to her attention being directed toward younger siblings, or an infinite number of other reasons.