Mood at Conception Affect Baby’s Happiness?

I don’t want to get all personal on you, so I won’t share details of my son’s conception except to say that the wine was fine that night. (As it is, well, most nights.) Countless studies show how naughty it is to consume alcohol during pregnancy, but at the point of conception my ob/gyn says the whole fertilizing of cells aren’t really affected by alcohol. (Never mind that for some, alcohol may account for the act of conception in the first place.)

A study in a recent issue of Bioscience Hypotheses suggests that hormones and chemicals resulting from happiness, depression and other mental states can affect our eggs and sperm, resulting in lasting changes in our children at the time of their conception. This includes the way we feel when our naturally occurring endorphins and the not-so-naturally occurring drugs like marijuana and heroin affect our mood. Researchers say these chemicals are known to have significant effects on sperm and eggs, like altering the patters of genes that are active in them. One researcher suggests that since a child gets his genes from his parents, perhaps a parent’s psychology efore conception can actually affect the child’s genes, making him more prone to being happy or depressed during his lifetime.

“This is an intriguing idea” says Dr. William Bains, Editor of Bioscience Hypotheses. “We wanted to publish it to see what other scientists thought, and whether others had data that could support or disprove it. That is what our journal is for, to stimulate debate about new ideas, the more groundbreaking, the better.”

Photo, Flickr, Yogi