Verified by:
iMumz Expert Panel
Updated on:
August 29, 2023
Yoga-based workouts during pregnancy can increase neurons in the baby’s hippocampus - the learning and memory part of the brain - by 40%.
Children of women who had stress during early gestation performed more poorly on a selective attention task, which is associated with accelerated age-related cognitive decline in their old age.
Maternal obesity during pregnancy was associated with adverse neuropsychiatric outcomes in childhood (including Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), a cardiometabolic risk for babies in adulthood, and below-normal neurodevelopment in the babies.
The happy news is that good maternal mental health was found to be positively associated with cognitive abilities in the children who were tested at 2 years of age.
So, while our genes play an important role, so do our behaviours and environment, such as what we eat and how physically active we are.
Chemical modifications on the genes can alter the DNA. A pregnant woman’s environment and behaviour during pregnancy, such as whether she eats healthy food, can change the baby’s epigenetics. Some of these changes can remain for decades and might make the child more likely to get certain diseases.
How can mums-to-be work use epigenesis for baby’s development?
Mums who did regular breathing exercises made their babies calmer.
Positive visualisation and talking to baby exercises made babies smarter in language and logical thinking.
It’s a simple routine that has proven to give results. It just needs consistent practice. Here are the activities that help:
- Daily meditation
- Yoga Nidra
- Healthy diet
- Listening to harmonising Music
- Talk to Baby and Story-telling (Baby Bonding activities)
- Breathing and Yoga Asanas
- Spouse bonding
Some Studies on Epigenesis
Yoga improves a pregnant woman’s blood flow.
A woman's blood volume may increase by 30% to 50% during pregnancy. Yoga makes the flow and circulation easy and smooth so that it reaches the baby actively. Better flow leads to better oxygenation and hence, better mind and body growth.
Meditation is linked to full-term pregnancy.
The benefits of Meditation are remarkable. One such study found that pregnant women who practised meditation were 50% less likely to give birth prematurely than women who followed no such routine.
Foetal brain development is linked to mother’s moods.
80% of the baby’s brain is developed in the womb and this means that it can now hold all the information that’s on the internet. Did you know that?
Both sides - the left side which is responsible for being focussed and the right side which will need a break and dive into music and extracurriculars can be developed right from when the baby is unborn by doing activities to shape a balanced learning brain.
If mum is peaceful, the baby grows to be more confident.
The pregnant woman’s state of mind affects the development of the unborn baby’s cognitive and noncognitive skills: when she is calm and at peace, the baby reaps significant benefits. She experiences higher self-esteem and sense of personal control. The opposite leads to increased incidences of uterine growth retardation, preterm labour, prolonged labour, foetal heart rate decline, low birth weight, increased caesarean section, postnatal neurobehavioral problems, and developmental disorders.
If the mum is anxious, the baby’s amygdala influences other brain regions, causing more chances of depression and her placenta’s composition changes adding psychiatric risk to the baby.
Music exposure during pregnancy is positively linked to behaviour post-birth.
Chansoria, Konanki, Tiwari in a single-centre, randomised, open-label controlled trial of primigravida mothers aged 19–29 years concluded that prenatal music exposure of the mother significantly and favourably influenced neonatal behaviour positively.
Mum can send catecholamines to baby
American biologist and psychologist W. B. Cannon demonstrated that fear and anxiety can be biochemically induced by the injection of a group of chemicals called catecholamines, which appear naturally in the blood of fearful animals and humans.
When the mother is hit with a wave of fear, the foetus begins trying to make sense of the different chemicals reaching them. The baby’s mind is confused and seems to be asking, ‘Why?’
Happy marriage leads to healthy kids
Dr. Stott rates a bad relationship between husband and wife as among the greatest causes of emotional and physical damage in the womb. On the basis of a study of over thirteen hundred children, he estimates a woman locked in a stormy marriage runs a 237 percent greater risk of bearing a psychologically or physically damaged child than a woman in a secure, nurturing relationship.
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Epigenetics - Can a Baby's health and personality be changed while in the womb?
Genes determine such things as personality, height, weight, brain development, and health. Epigenetic factors can influence the growth of neurons in the developing brain as well as modify the activity of neurons in the brain.
Does every individual start from material that is unformed like wet clay? Or does the individual start in some already preformed, or predetermined way? That’s the question epigenesis seeks to answer - and the finding - it's both!
Development at Conception
As soon as sperm meets egg, the embryo begins its mission: divide and differentiate.
The embryo starts out as the melding of these TWO cells (finally, there will be 50 trillion cells, WOW!)
In a few hours, the embryo already has the endoderm, mesoderm, and ectoderm, the initial three layers of cells.
The layer of the ectoderm gives rise to the nervous system. Brain coming SOON!
Foetal Development at Week 4-5
Neural tube is here!
It will give rise to neurons that will form the neural crest that will become the peripheral nervous system (the nerves outside the brain and spinal cord).
The cavity of the neural tube will form the ventricles of the brain and the central canal of the spinal cord.
The three distinct bulges you see will become the three major divisions of the brain: forebrain, midbrain, and hindbrain.
Foetal Development at Week 10-13
During weeks 8 to 10, the cerebrum begins its development in a BIG way.
Neurons multiply and begin their migration throughout the brain.
Reflexes appear for the first time during this period.
Foetal Development at Week 16
Now, the brain is sorting all its compartments. The frontal pole (which becomes the neocortex) grows VERY fast compared with the rest of the cortex. Brain indentations or folds appear.
The different lobes of the brain also become apparent, and neurons continue to multiply and migrate throughout the cortex.
The corpus callosum, the massive collection of fibres that connects both hemispheres comes.
In the final trimester of pregnancy, synapses- or the points where two neurons pass information through are forming now!
Folds continue to develop to create a larger surface area of the brain.
Neurons begin to myelinate (a process of insulation that speeds their electrical communication).
By the thirty-second week, the foetal brain is in control of breathing and body temperature.
What is Epigenesis?
A caterpillar turns into a butterfly, right?! Like that example, the raw material in a foetus can transform and change.
Researchers now estimate that only half of IQ is related to genes - the rest is influenced by the baby’s in-womb environment. Yoga-based workouts during pregnancy can increase neurons in the baby’s hippocampus - the learning and memory part of the brain - by 40%.
Children of women who had stress during early gestation performed more poorly on a selective attention task, which is associated with accelerated age-related cognitive decline in their old age.
Maternal obesity during pregnancy was associated with adverse neuropsychiatric outcomes in childhood (including Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), a cardiometabolic risk for babies in adulthood, and less-than-ideal neurodevelopment in the babies.
The happy news is that good maternal mental health was found to be positively associated with cognitive abilities in the children who were tested at 2 years of age.
So, while our genes play an important role, so do our behaviours and environment, such as what we eat and how physically active we are. During pregnancy, the behaviour of the mother decides for the unborn baby.
What the mother ends up doing affects how the baby’s genes will end up working. Unlike genetic changes, epigenetic changes are reversible and do not change your DNA sequence, but they can change how your body reads a DNA sequence.
Gene expression refers to how often or when proteins are created from the instructions within your genes. While genetic changes can alter which protein is made, epigenetic changes affect gene expression to turn genes “on” and “off.” Since your environment and behaviours, such as diet and exercise, can result in epigenetic changes, it is easy to see the connection between your genes and your behaviours and environment.
How does Epigenesis work during pregnancy?
Chemical modifications on the genes can alter the DNA. A pregnant woman’s environment and behaviour during pregnancy, such as whether she eats healthy food, can change the baby’s epigenetics. Some of these changes can remain for decades and might make the child more likely to get certain diseases.
People whose mothers were pregnant with them during the Dutch Famine of the 1940s went on to develop diseases such as heart disease, schizophrenia, and type 2 diabetes. Around 60 years after the famine, researchers looked at methylation levels in people whose mothers were pregnant with them during the famine. These people had increased methylation at some genes and decreased methylation at other genes compared with their siblings who were not exposed to famine before their birth. These differences in methylation could help explain why these people had an increased likelihood of certain diseases later in life
Children of mothers with PMD (prenatal maternal depression) showed cortical thinning, particularly over the frontal lobes and cortical thinning may be a risk marker for depression. A second study found that the microstructure of the amygdala, indexed by fractional anisotropy, may be altered in newborns of mothers with PMD. A third study showed that PMD-exposed infants had increased functional connectivity between the amygdala and several frontal regions.
Heightened maternal anxiety increased the association between plasma and amniotic cortisol levels, suggesting that women’s distress may affect children’s outcomes via epigenetic regulation of glucocorticoid pathway genes in the placenta.
How can mums-to-be work use epigenesis for baby’s development?
In the current context of fast-paced urban lives, the future has multiple stressors impinging on all, definitely more so on expectant mothers. The question is how one can find the discipline and attitude to slow down and invest in scientifically-proven mindfulness, relaxation and planned activities for self-care.
Studies have shown that babies of mums who exercised during pregnancy exhibited improved learning and memory and decreased anxiety-like behaviours.
Mums who did regular breathing exercises made their babies calmer.
Positive visualisation and talking to baby exercises when done by mum made babies smarter in language and logical thinking.
It’s a simple routine that has proven to give results. It just needs consistent practice. Here are the activities that help:
- Daily meditation
- Yoga Nidra
- Healthy diet
- Listening to harmonising Music
- Talk to Baby and Story-telling (Baby Bonding activities)
- Breathing and Yoga Asanas
- Spouse bonding
Here are the recommendations in detail:
8 minutes of daily guided mindfulness meditation.
3 hours of yoga and breathing practices every week.
2 hours of harmonising music every week.
20-30 minutes of daily baby bonding activities.
Getting aware of pregnancy conditions with education.
Customising diet for ideal nutrition.
Some Studies on Epigenesis
Yoga improves a pregnant woman’s blood flow.
A woman's blood volume may increase by 30% to 50% during pregnancy. Yoga makes the flow and circulation easy and smooth so that it reaches the baby actively. Better flow leads to better oxygenation and hence, better mind and body growth.
Meditation is linked to full-term pregnancy.
The benefits of Meditation are remarkable. One such study found that pregnant women who practised meditation were 50% less likely to give birth prematurely than women who followed no such routine.
Foetal brain development is linked to mother’s moods.
80% of the baby’s brain is developed in the womb and this means that it can now hold all the information that’s on the internet. Did you know that?
Both sides - the left side which is responsible for being focussed and the right side which will need a break and dive into music and extracurriculars can be developed right from when the baby is unborn by doing activities to shape a balanced learning brain.
The 'baby blues' are growing, and more so in Asian countries and urban women with one report indicating its presence in 65% of new mothers. Approximately 70% to 80% of women experience either prolonged depression or a phase of baby blues
Poor sleep in pregnancy leads to decreased immune function.
Sleep deprivation leads to a decrease in the function of the immune system, hypothalamus, pituitary and adrenal gland. In a study, 80% of pregnant women reported anxiety around the process of birth and one reason was stress during pregnancy and inability to sleep.
If mum is peaceful, the baby grows to be more confident.
The pregnant woman’s state of mind affects the development of the unborn baby’s cognitive and noncognitive skills: when she is calm and at peace, the baby reaps significant benefits. She experiences higher self-esteem and sense of personal control. The opposite leads to increased incidences of uterine growth retardation, preterm labour, prolonged labour, foetal heart rate decline, low birth weight, increased caesarean section, postnatal neurobehavioral problems, and developmental disorder.
If mum is anxious, the baby’s amygdala is changed.
A second study found that the microstructure of the amygdala, indexed by The amygdala is commonly thought to form the core of a neural system for processing fearful and threatening stimuli fractional anisotropy, may be altered in newborns of mothers with PMD.
If the mum is anxious, the baby’s amygdala influences other brain regions, causing more chances of depression.
A third study showed that PMD-exposed infants had increased functional connectivity between the amygdala and several frontal regions.Together these results suggest that exposure to PMD may influence the development of the frontal cortex, and, particularly, the amygdala–prefrontal circuits, with implications for the future. For example, altered amygdala–prefrontal connectivity has been implicated in paediatric depression.
If mum is anxious, her placenta’s composition changes. It adds psychiatric risk to the baby.
Heightened maternal anxiety increased the association between plasma and amniotic cortisol levels, suggesting that women’s distress may affect children’s outcomes via epigenetic regulation of glucocorticoid pathway genes in the placenta. Consistent with the Developmental Origins of Health and Disease model, prenatal distress was found to be associated with heightened psychiatric risk, suggesting a ‘third pathway’ for the familial transmission of disease beyond shared genes and the postnatal effects of maternal psychopathology that influences foetal neurobehavioral development. It has now become a focus of emerging research suggesting that maternal distress exerts epigenetic influences on glucocorticoid-related genes and, in turn, infants.
If mum is practising mindfulness daily, she connects better with her baby post-birth.
A milestone study by Tsao, Hsing, Wang and Huey-Ming Guo established that there is a relationship between mindfulness and maternal-foetal attachment during pregnancy. A pregnant woman needs to be made aware of the need for her to connect to the foetus. Furthermore, cultivating an open and non-judgemental attitude toward one’s pregnancy stress is important in addressing the relationship between the mother and her baby.
Music exposure during pregnancy is positively linked to behaviour post-birth.
Simple elements like ‘music’ impacted a mother’s state of mind and outcomes in pregnancy. Chansoria, Konanki, Tiwari in a single-centre, randomised, open-label controlled trial of primigravida mothers aged 19–29 years concluded that prenatal music exposure of the mother significantly and favourably influenced neonatal behaviour positively.
Unborn babies responded actively to vibrating sounds
They taught sixteen unborn babies to respond to a vibrating sensation by kicking. Normally, an unborn child won’t react that way to such a gentle sensation. He will ignore it, in fact. But in this case, the investigators were able to create what behavioural psychologist call a conditioned or learned response in their young subjects by first exposing them several times to something that would make them kick naturally―a loud noise (it was made a few feet from each mother and her child’s reaction was monitored by sensors strapped on her abdomen). Then the investigators introduced the vibration. Each child was exposed to it immediately after the noise was made near her mother. The researchers’ assumption was that after enough exposures, eventually the association between vibrations and kicking would become so automatic in the babies’ minds that they would kick even when the vibration was used without the noise. And it proved correct. The vibration became their cue and their kicking in response to it a learned behaviour. This study, which provides a good glimpse of the unborn child’s capabilities, also does more. It shows one of the ways personality characteristics and traits begin forming in utero. Our likes and dislikes, fears and phobias―in other words, all the distinct behaviours that make us uniquely ourselves―are, in part, also the product of conditioned learning.
Unborn babies reacted even to mum’s thoughts.
Dr. Michael Lieberman showed that an unborn child grows emotionally agitated (as measured by the quickening of his heartbeat) each time his mother thinks of having a cigarette. She doesn’t even have to put it to her lips or light a match; just the idea of having a cigarette is enough to upset him. Naturally, the foetus has no way of knowing his mother is smoking―or thinking about it―but he is intellectually sophisticated enough to associate the experience of her smoking with the unpleasant sensation it produces in him. This is caused by the drop in his oxygen supply (smoking lowers the oxygen content of the maternal blood passing the placenta), which is physiologically harmful to him, but possibly even more harmful are the psychological effects of maternal smoking. It thrusts him into a chronic state of uncertainty and fear. He never knows when that unpleasant physical sensation will reoccur. And that’s the kind of situation which does predispose toward a deep-seated, conditioned anxiety.
Unborn baby moved in rhythm to mother’s speech
Dr. Henry Truby demonstrated how the foetus hears clearly from the sixth month in utero, and, even more startling, that he moves his body rhythm to his mother’s speech.
Unborn baby can move to music
A four- or five-month-old foetus definitely responds to sound and melody―and responds in very discriminating ways. Put Vivaldi on the phonograph and even the most agitated baby relaxes. Put Beethoven on and even the calmest child starts kicking and moving. Interview of a musician named Brott: “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.
Child remembers chants from in-womb days
One afternoon, a young American mum living in Toronto found her two-year-old daughter sitting on the living room floor chanting to herself, “Breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out.” The woman said she recognized the words immediately; they were part of a Lamaze exercise. But how had her child picked them out? Her first thought was that the youngster had overheard them on television, but she quickly realised that was impossible. They lived in Oklahoma City, and any program about it her daughter would have seen would have been on the American version of Lamaze; those programs are used only in the Canadian version. Since that the one she had taken, there was only one possible explanation: Her daughter had overheard and memorised* the words while she was still in the womb.
Just listening to mum’s heartbeat gives babies peace
Mum’s heartbeats help her baby flourish. This was demonstrated a few years ago in a unique and ingenious study. It consisted merely of piping a tape of a human heartbeat into a nursery filled with newborn babies. The researchers assumed that if the maternal heartbeat had any emotional significance, the newborn in the nursery on the days it played would behave differently from the babies there on the days it did not. That is precisely what happened. Except it happened in a much more conclusive way than had been expected. The scientists, fairly certain some differences would show up when they designed the study, were stunned by the number and magnitude of the ones that occurred. In virtually every way, the heartbeat babies did better, in most cases, much better. They ate more, weighed better, slept more, breathed better, cried less and got sick less. Not because they received special treatment or had superior parents or better doctors, but simply because they were exposed to a two-dollar tape recording of a heartbeat.
Four-year-old Odile remembers English from the womb
Dr. Alfred Tomatis tells the story of Odile, an autistic child (a child who withdraws from reality) he treated several years ago. Like most youngsters with her affliction, Odile was virtually mute. When Dr. Tomatis first saw her in his office, she neither spoke nor appeared to hear when spoken to. At first Odile clung stubbornly to her silence. But slowly Dr. Tomatis’s treatment began drawing her out. Within a month, she was listening and speaking. Naturally, her parents were pleased with this progress; at the same time, they were also perplexed by it: They noticed their daughter’s comprehension improved markedly whenever they spoke English instead of French. What perplexed them was where Odile had picked up her knowledge. Neither of them spoke much English at home and, until she came under Dr. Tomatis’s care, four-year-old Odile had been almost totally impervious to the spoken word, no matter in what language it was uttered. Even assuming the unlikely, that she had somehow learned it by overhearing snippets of her parents’ conversations, why hadn’t any of her older (and normal) brothers and sisters done so as well? Initially Dr. Tomatis found all this equally baffling, until one day when Odile’s mother casually mentioned that through most of her pregnancy, she had worked in a Paris import-export firm where only English was spoken.
We find mum’s heartbeat comforting even as adults
The unconscious memory of the maternal heartbeat in utero appears to be why a baby is comforted by being held to someone’s chest or is lulled to sleep by the steady ticking of a clock, and why adults in a busy office are rarely distracted by the rhythmic clacking of typewriters or the steady hum of an air conditioner. Dr. Albert Liley believes it is also why most people, when asked to set a metronome to a rate that satisfies them, usually choose a rate in the range of fifty to ninety beats per minute―roughly the same as the beat of the human heart. Another expert, Elias Carnetti, thinks the primal memory of one’s mother’s heartbeat also explains a lot about our musical tastes. All known drum rhythms, he points out, conform to one of two basic patterns―either the rapid tattoo of animal hooves or the measured beat of the human heart. The animal-hoof patter is easy enough to understand―a distant remnant of man’s past as a hunter. Yet it is the heartbeat rhythm that is more widespread in the world―even among the remaining hunting cultures. Certainly, Boris Brott is convinced his musical interests were awakened in the womb. Many other musicians, among them Arthur Rubinstein and Yehudi Menuhin, make the same claim. Moreover, in an arresting series of new studies audiologist Michele Clements has shown that the unborn child has distinct musical likes and dislikes―and discriminatIng ones at that. As I mentioned earlier, Vivaldi is one of the unborn child’s favourite composers; Mozart is another. Whenever one of their soaring compositions was put on a record player, report Dr. Clements, foetal heart rate invariably steadied and kicking declined. The music of Brahms and Beethoven, and all forms of rock, on the other hand, drove most foetuses to distraction. They kicked violently when records of these composers were played to their pregnant mothers.
Person remembers his mum was at a carnival before birth
Stanislav Grof tells how one man, under medication, portrayed his foetal body very accurately―how large his head was in comparison to his legs and arms―what it felt like to be warm amniotic fluid and to be attached to his placenta. Then, while describing his heart sounds and those of his mother, he suddenly broke off midway and announced he could hear muffled noises outside the womb―the laughter and yelling of human voices and the tinny blast of carnival trumpets. Just as suddenly and inexplicably, the man declared he was about to be delivered. Intrigued by the vividness and detail of his memory, Dr. Grof contacted the patient’s mother, who not only confirmed the details of her son’s story but added that it was the excitement of a carnival that precipitated his birth. Quite surprised, she had kept the carnival secret and wondered, had the doctor learned of her visit?
Mum can send catecholamines to baby
American biologist and psychologist W. B. Cannon demonstrated that fear and anxiety can be biochemically induced by the injection of a group of chemicals* called catecholamines, which appear naturally in the blood of fearful animals and humans. In Dr. Cannon’s experiments, the catecholamines extracted from already frightened animals were injected into a second group of relaxed animals. Within seconds and without provocation, all the calm animals also began acting terrified. Dr. Cannon subsequently discovered that what produced this unusual effect was the catecholamines’ ability to act like a circulating fire alarm system. Once in the bloodstream, they produce all the physiological reactions we associate with fear and anxiety. And whether the blood system happens to be in an animal or unborn child makes little difference. The only distinction in the foetus’s case is the source of these substances; they come from his mother when she becomes upset. As soon as they pass the placental barrier, they upset him as well. Strictly speaking, that makes the unborn child’s anxiety and fear largely physiological. The direct, immediate, and most measurable impact of maternal hormones is on his body, not his mind.
Each wave of maternal hormones jolts him out of the blankness that is his normal state in the womb, and into a kind of receptivity. Something unusual―perhaps unsettling - has happened and because he is human, the foetus begins trying to make sense out of that event. Though he does not frame the question quite this way, what he is really asking himself is “Why?”
Effect of whether a mother wants and accepts her child
After following two thousand women through pregnancy and birth, Dr. Monika Lukesch, a psychologist at Constantine University in Frankfurt, West Germany, concluded in her study that the mother’s attitude had the single greatest effect on how an infant turned out. All her subjects were from the same economic background, all were equally intelligent, and all had the same degree and quality of prenatal care. The only major distinguishing factor was their attitudes toward 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 afterward, than the offspring of rejecting mothers.
Unborn child reacted to mother’s state of mind towards welcoming baby during pregnancy
Dr. Gerhard Rottmann of the University of Salzburg, Austria shows the very fine emotional distinction the foetus is capable of. His subjects, 141 women, were placed in one of four emotional categories based on their attitudes toward pregnancy.
Category 1: Ideal Mothers (who were eager to have the baby) had the easiest pregnancies, the most trouble-free births, and the healthiest offspring―physically and emotionally.
Category 2: Catastrophic Mothers, as a group had the most devastating medical problems during pregnancy, and bore the highest rate of premature, low-weight, and emotionally disturbed infants
Category 3: Ambivalent Mothers were outwardly quite happy about their pregnancies At birth, an unusually large number of their babies had both behavioural and gastrointestinal problems.
Category 4: Cool Mothers who were sending mixed messages. Their mothers had many different reasons for not wanting children―they had careers, they had financial problems, and they were not ready to be mothers yet―but tests had shown that they subconsciously desired their pregnancies. On some level, their children picked up both messages, and it apparently confused them. At birth, an unusually large number of them were apathetic and lethargic.
Happy marriage leads to healthy kids
Dr. Stott rates a bad relationship between husband and wife as among the greatest causes of emotional and physical damage in the womb. On the basis of a study of over thirteen hundred children, he estimates a woman locked in a stormy marriage runs a 237 percent greater risk of bearing a psychologically or physically damaged child than a woman in a secure, nurturing relationship.
Study:Steady heartbeat makes babies more stable
When foetuses had a steady heartbeat, they did not get upset by noise or sudden alarms. Fifteen years later, these youngsters were still rarely upset by the unexpected. Being calm in the womb because the mother was calm he was much more likely to provide an emotional, creative interpretation of it, describing not just what was in the picture, but how he thought the people in it felt―whether they were sad or happy, concerned or carefree. The low reactors, on the other hand, tended to offer very concrete descriptions. What they described was what they saw immediately in front of them. There was little or no imagination or flair in their interpretations.
The Conclusion on Epigenetics
In-utero, the child is like a computer that can be reprogrammed.
They can do complex mental calculations at the cerebral cortex level during the sixth month in utero. They gain awareness of self as a distinct "self" and are able to convert sensations into emotions. How did all this happen? It is on the basis of the emotional content of his mother's messages through her hormones and her voice.
At first, they can only do very simple emotional equations. As their memory and experience expand, they gradually acquire the ability to make more refined connections. At three months in utero, such complicated maternal messages may be confusing and disturbing.
By birth, however, the infant is smart enough to be able to respond to maternal feelings and compose physical, emotional, and cognitive responses. What an amazing womb journey, right?
