Pre-Parenting: Nurturing Your Child from Conception - Softcover

Verny, Thomas R

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0671775243 ISBN 13: 9780671775247

Verlag: Simon & Schuster, 2003

Inhaltsangabe

How does a mother's tone of voice affect her unborn child? What kind of music, if any, should a child be exposed to in the womb? Can parents influence the predispositions of their child to traits like depression, or something as elusive as basic goodness? Thanks to revolutionary discoveries in neuroscience and developmental psychology in recent years, says Dr. Thomas Verny, we now know more about these questions than ever. In Pre-Parenting, Dr. Verny translates this research into practical advice for parents and parents-to-be.
Pre-Parenting explains how even the most ordinary events can evoke a cascade of biological changes in a baby -- not only in the brain but also in the immune system and throughout the body. Every experience, from a baby's trip down the birth canal to the way she is held or spoken to, can shape her health and personality. An internationally recognized expert in early human development, Dr. Verny shows parents how to use this new information to create an ideal environment for their babies, enhance their babies' intelligence and social skills, and become better parents through "conscious parenting." Insightful and encouraging, Pre-Parenting is an invaluable guide for parents who want to help actualize their child's full potential, beginning with conception.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Thomas Verny, MD, is a psychiatrist in private practice who earned his doctorate at the University of Toronto. He has taught at Harvard and York (Ontario) Universities and at the University of Toronto and is the founder of that city’s Center for Psychotherapy and Education. He has lectured extensively on the unborn child throughout Europe and North America.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Chapter 1: Crossing the Amniotic Sea

In what amounts to a paradigm shift in our understanding of the human mind, we now know that interaction with the environment is not simply an interesting feature of brain development but rather an absolute requirement -- built in to the process as the brain grows from one cell to 100 billion, from the moment of conception on. It is this requirement for brain building, says neuroscientist Myron A. Hofer of Columbia University and the New York State Psychiatric Institute, that explains why there is so much fetal activity so early in pregnancy; interacting with the environment through movement, the unborn child's experience provides a scaffold upon which the brain can form. No one doubts that the mother's diet is important to the developing baby, but today studies by Hofer and others point to an even greater influence: incoming signals -- crystallized through the mother as a swirl of behavior, sensation, feeling, and thought -- immerse the unborn child in a primordial world of experience, continuously directing the development of the mind.

In the Beginning

The spark of a new life is lit when a sperm fertilizes an egg. Containing the mother's genetic contribution to an offspring, eggs are released from the ovaries and travel down the fallopian tubes (the oviducts) to the uterus at the rate of about one a month.

Although eggs are few, sperm are plentiful. Produced in vast numbers -- as many as 300 million with each ejaculation -- they propel themselves up the cervix and through the fallopian tubes in a race to reach the egg. Just one sperm will win that race, entering the egg and triggering the biochemical chain reaction that will most likely result in the birth of a baby nine months later.

The quest for individuality and survival starts in these earliest moments, before conception itself, when spermatozoon, one varying from the next, compete for access to the egg. While most of the contenders propel themselves toward the egg at about four inches an hour, a few speed demons make the complete journey in five minutes. In fact, biologists now tell us, sperm cells seem to fall into two groups: warriors and lotharios. The soldiers form a rear guard whose function is to prevent any unauthorized personnel -- another man's sperm -- from interfering with the amorous advances of their brothers.

In the recent past, experts thought that fertilization occurred when enzymes in the head of each sperm, acting like dynamite, blasted through the outer shell of the egg so that the sperm could lodge inside. Today we understand that each egg selects the sperm it mates with, making the first irrevocable decision in one's life. Indeed, rather than passively participating in this drama, the egg opens its shell and literally embraces the sperm it feels attracted to.

When maternal and paternal genes commingle in a single cell, a new entity, called the zygote, is formed. Over the next few days the zygote divides again and again, giving rise first to a morula (Greek for "raspberry") and then to a blastocyst.

After seven days the blastocyst floats down the oviduct to attach itself to the posterior wall of the uterus. But here it often runs into trouble. Because half the genetic material in the new organism derives from the father, the mother's immune system identifies the blastocyst as a foreign substance and mounts an attack, just as it would against a virus or a splinter. As a result, many early embryos are aborted. This life-and-death struggle will mark all survivors through the process of cellular imprinting, in some sense becoming the first experiential "memory" we have.

The Brain Makes a Debut

After successful implantation of the blastocyst, the cells grow and differentiate, forming the beginnings of the skeleton, the kidneys, the heart, and the lungs. The first traces of the unborn's brain emerge with the appearance of the "neural groove" along the growing but still tiny embryo some 17 days after conception. By day 21, ridges called neural folds develop along the groove, and by day 27 the folds have wrapped around the groove to form the neural tube, precursor to the spinal cord and brain.

When the neural tube closes off at day 27, cells from its anterior end start dividing so rapidly that they double in number every hour and a half. As they divide they also differentiate, giving rise to the major brain structures -- including the cerebral hemispheres, the cerebellum, the diencephalon, the midbrain, the pons, and the medulla oblongata. In these early days of gestation, primitive brain cells continue their rapid division, migrating from the original "zone of multiplication" at the anterior of the tube to the more distant regions of the flowering brain.

It is during this migratory voyage that brain cells, guided by a still obscure string of chemical messengers, begin to forge a true network. Because the system is multiplying so rapidly and because it is so complex, it is extremely vulnerable to damage by inappropriate concentrations of hormones or toxins and a host of outside disturbances. And consequences may be dire.

In one early mechanism, primitive cells form what scientists now call cortical ladders. Neural cells use these ladders to "climb" from the zone of multiplication to the outer regions of the cerebral cortex -- the center of thought. If disrupted, cells may fail to get off the ladder and move to the side, so that the path for new climbers is blocked. In the case of gridlock, developmental abnormalities may result.

Two species of mutant mice, called reeler and staggerer because of their bizarre motor behavior, are believed to result from this type of developmental abnormality, says Arnold B. Scheibel, professor of neurobiology and psychiatry and former director of the Brain Research Institute at the UCLA Medical Center. In humans, similar problems may contribute to schizophrenia, temporal lobe epilepsy, dyslexia, and some types of character disorders. Preliminary studies suggest that the most intractable sociopaths may have suffered damage during the "ladder" sequence in the development of the brain.

But "climbing the ladder" is just one challenge facing embryonic brain cells. As the young network evolves, neurons must connect with specialized "target cells" in distant brain regions. If the targets have not yet developed, then proxy target cells are spawned. Without the target cells or their proxies, neurons end up in the wrong place or simply wither and die. If things go well, the proxy cells are destroyed and the real target cells take their place in the architecture of the brain.

"This remarkable sequence of processes, culminating in a 'change of partners' and the establishment of permanent connections, is subject to error," says Scheibel, "and the results may include a number of major and minor cognitive and emotional disorders that show up at various stages in the life of the individual. We are only at the beginning of our understanding of these complex phenomena, but certain types of dyslexia may be one of the results of problems during this change of cortical connections."

The Nature of the Network

Finally, after migrating nerve cells reach their destination, they commence the process of networking by growing branches, or "dendrites." The dendrites deliver messages to the nerve cell's long, slender axon, which in turn carries the information to other receptive cells.

From the middle of the second trimester -- about midway through gestation -- an elaborate network of neurons, their projected axons, and their lush dendritic branches start communicating through connections known as synapses. A synapse is not a point of literal connection between two nerve cells but rather a microscopic gap. One cell communicates with the next by sending a chemical messenger...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Simon & Schuster
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2003
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0671775243
• ISBN 13: 9780671775247
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 340
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Simon and Schuster Netherlands BV, GPSR Europäische Union; info@simonandschuster.nl; ; Herculesplein 96; AA Utrecht; 3584; Niederlande