Beliefs that Are Being Challenged by the Science of Fetal Origins

The content on these pages are personal notes from my readings of “How the Nine Months Before Birth Shape the Rest of Our Lives” (2010) by Annie Murphy Paul; pages 7 – 8.

Belief #1: The fetus is a “perfect parasite.”

“Until surprisingly recently, many doctors and scientists were convinced that the fetus was a “perfect parasite,” skimming the nutrients it needed from its mother’s body, unaffected by the quantity or kind of food she consumed.  (A friend of mine who had a baby just a few years ago was told by her obstetrician that she could eat only lettuce for her entire pregnancy and her fetus wouldn’t know the difference.)  The fetal origins literature tells a very different story: that the fetus is in fact exquisitely sensitive to its mother’s diet.”

Belief #2: Major Illnesses — from heart disease to diabetes to cancer — are caused by a combination of bad genes and bad lifestyle (too much salty, fatty food, too little exercise) in adulthood.

In fact, there is a third risk factor: the individual’s experiences in the womb.  Fetal origins research suggests that the lifestyle that influences the development of disease is often not only the one we follow as adults, but the one our mothers practiced when they were pregnant with us as well.

Belief #3: The fetus is safely sealed away in the womb, protected from all manner of pollutants and poisons by the ever-vigilant placenta.

In fact, we’re learning that the fetus inhabits the same world as adults — the world of alcohol and cigarettes, of polluted air and water, of industrial chemicals untested for their safety.  The fetus’s small size and immature state of development, as well as the permeability of the defense systems deployed around it by its mother, meant that individuals are more vulnerable to environmental toxins during the prenatal period than at any other time in their lives.