How Can We Not Focus on Very Very Early Life?

I know I am in danger of drowning the fish but with all the new evidence available it seems so obvious that we must go back to those key shaping events at birth and during our womb life.

A recent study found that babies in the womb feel their mother’s anxiety as early as four months in gestation. The baby’s anxiety level rises and falls with the mother’s anxiety cycle. (This is work at the baby charity known as Tommy’s). Anxiety was measured in the mother’s blood as well as in the amniotic fluid (cortisol levels). The fetus/baby was feeling anxious, not as a cerebral event but as a biologic one. And his system is learning to be alert and vigilant; the problem is that this vigilance becomes an imprint that endures a very long time and governs his life.

The fetus is constantly adapting to its environment. When the mother’s system signals danger so does the baby’s. The difference is that the baby’s adaptation is being imprinted on a naïve and innocent system that has no other frame of reference. The mother’s anxiety eventually comes to an end, but that doesn’t mean it ends for the baby. It becomes a biologic memory where the baby is learning to be on the qui vive, always a little too alert and vigilant; hence overreacts later on to the slightest hint of danger. That original fear has burnt a memory into his brain—and becomes the imprint. It is the platform or springboard for later reactions. It makes them excessive or inadequate.

It has been found that the slightest change in the mother’s diet can affect the baby and produce a propensity for later obesity. In animal models it was found that changes in the protein input of the carrying mother significantly changed the weight gain or its lack later on. Obesity being one later result. Again, the baby is learning to adapt to its most important and only environment it knows. The problem is that the adaptation endures and the adult system is always expecting what happened in the womb—via the imprint. The adaptation continues until it becomes maladaptation. It is not a wrong reaction; it is just a reaction to an old event and not appropriate in the present. My definition of neurosis. So he sees food at age thirty and immediately has to eat. Or he sees a frown on someone’s face and immediately becomes anxious. This is known as one-trial learning and is important.

So next time your shrink offers you insight into your unconscious--beware! The only person who has direct and precise access to your history is you. If we try to understand inordinate behavior of any kind, particularly addictions we need to carefully look at life before birth. It is where trauma diminishes development of those inchoate cortical cells that suppress pain; and imprints trauma which constantly agitates us, even when one seems impassive and non-reactive. And when we have a first-line imprint you have a continuous powerful force stimulating us from within. It needs quieting with the strongest drug available because imprints on that level are nearly always life-and-death matters. So if we look into ourselves we can actually see those shaping events from our earliest months. If we are obsessive about food we can bet that mother’s diet while carrying plays a role. Or if we are easily set off with anxiety we can bet that mother carried around a bit load of anxiety herself. The baby was anxious because the mother was, and his system shouts “danger”. Perhaps for the rest of his life.

You know why I am concerned about the Anthony Weiner affair? The life of the baby being carried by his wife is at stake. Her stress level must be enormous and so will be the baby’s, as well. The problem is that his level is imprinted and a constant weight for him. He will have to take drugs just to feel comfortable. How very sad!