We know that a mother who abuses drugs or smokes can cause damages to the physical and mental state of their children. What about one's general mental health and style of personality? Does playing Mozart really help the fetus? Can reading to a child in the womb make them a better reader? Author Annie Murphy Paul researches this very ideas in her new book. Take a look at the clipping form the Scientific American magazine on her book below. Share your thoughts on this interesting concept about the first 9 months!
Origins: How the Nine Months before Birth Shape the Rest of Our Lives
by Annie Murphy Paul. Free Press, 2010
Does your birth month have an impact on your mental health? The startling answer seems to be yes. “Schizophrenics are about 10 percent more likely than the rest of the population to have been born in late winter and early spring,” says journalist Annie Murphy Paul in Origins: How the Nine Months before Birth Shape the Rest of Our Lives. The reason for that could be that mothers are more likely to catch a viral infection during that time of the year.
Origins provides a journey through the burgeoning field of fetal origins. Paul explores the extent to which a mother’s experience influences the fetus’s physical and mental development.
Contrary to prevailing notions, the placenta is not an insulating capsule that completely protects the fetus from the outside world. Paul describes the womb as a mailbox that constantly accepts “biological postcards from the world outside.” The food a mother eats and the emotions she feels during pregnancy send important signals to the fetus that become “part of its flesh and blood.”
