What Did You Do When You Were Expecting?
October 14, 2008 by Kristina Chew, PhD
Filed under Health
Having considered prenatal genetic testing and autism, what about the possible influence of the environment of the womb on a developing baby? An October 10th article in Slate with the provocative title of Womb Raider asks if future health problems occur during gestation:
Recently, a study of 1,044 mother-child pairs found that 3-year-olds born to mothers who gained too much weight during pregnancy had increased odds of becoming overweight. Somehow, it seemed, these women metabolically programmed their kids to get fat.
The Slate article immediately acknowledges the dangers of this particular line of thinking about children’s health:
The notion that children’s futures are foretold early in life has strong narrative appeal (consider the stories of Aladdin, the Lion King, and Harry Potter, who were all destined for greatness). Increasingly, however, even reality-based researchers and media say that events in the womb and early infancy are critical developmental opportunities with irreversible consequences when mishandled. These notions form the backbone of modern parental anxiety (heaven forbid, for example, that a mother is unable to exclusively breast-feed her newborn). More worrisome, pinning complex public-health problems, like childhood obesity, on failed gestation has a blame-the-victim undercurrent [my emphasis]. Though the supporting research is often weak, this view may encourage inaction: More support for kids, the thinking goes, might not alter the fate set in motion by irresponsible wombs.
This fall, the British Broadcasting Corp. will air War in the Womb, a documentary tracing the origins of later depression, autism, and other problems to “fetal-maternal conflict” during pregnancy.
Mothers of autistic children, and, simply, parents of autistic children know well to be wary about theories that look closely, and even very closely in certain ways, and with questions about what did an expecting mother eat? did she exercise? was she ever on bedrest? did she work and where?. The shadow of the notion of refrigerator mothers—cold and unfeeling and emotionally withdrawn women who caused their young children to become autistic—still lingers, though this theory of autism causation is widely and generally discredited.
With the National Child Study—which “will examine the effects of environmental influences on the health and development of 100,000 children across the United States, following them from before birth until age 21″—-now underway, will mothers find themselves under the limelight, and every detail of “what you did” while pregnant scrutinized?
That “fat mother-fat toddler” finding is odd based on what researchers have previously found. There was a study done on children of Dutch women who had been pregnant and starved during the famine induced by WWII (if I’m remembering all of this correctly; the Dutch Famine Study? Something like that…). Their offspring were more likely to be overweight and have related health problems, something about a mechanism of in utero-induced energy conservation because of the low-nutrient input, so they were more likely to conserve and store calories as a result. Children born to women who weren’t starved during pregnancy did not have this problem of hyperconservation. And the problems of these children of the starved mothers carried on into the next generation; the epigenetic regulation engendered by the starvation experience continued into the grandchild generation.
Is it this?
The Dutch famine and its long-term consequences for adult health
Yep. I was digging into the dark recesses of my mental files for that one, but that’s it.
And even if you did not give birth to your child people will come up with things to say. Choices that you must have made as a mother to cause your child’s Autism or even a chromosome disorder. Sigh.
I think it’s worthwhile to do large scale studies of prenatal exposures and experiences, to see if there are common variables that stand out for further study, and potentially increase understanding of familial and environmental risk. Epigenetics suggests that environmental matters are relevant to consider.
I followed the directions based on current at-the-time practices of good prenatal care. I suspect most women do. Potential future finger pointing about yet-unknown or discovered after-the-fact “should have done”s would not make me feel guilty. That requires a level of precognition that I feel is unrealistic.
As far as the pregnancy weight gain and the obese child study, the authors themselves seem to state that there are potentially alternative contributing pathways for child obesity, of which the intrauterine environment during pregnancy is one possible explanation, and that environmental factors remains an active research area.
I all ready have writen some thing on this subject be for about enviroment and what happens in the womb due to the fluoride un the water[lead and arsenic both heavy metals]. It is nce to see that they are going to take look at the enviroment, but they will look to far out in space for an answer. The other posting is on Nov 30 2006 under A blood test for Autism or comm 496153.
What do you due .when exp, IF it was me I would run out and get a filter that may remove the lead and arsenic from my water supply that I use for drinking or cooking