I’m reading a fascinating book called What’s Going on in There? : How the Brain and Mind Develop in the First Five Years of Life
. It’s satisfying all of my obsessive need to know as much as possible about what’s happening, how we can make the baby healthier, happier, etc.
On page 82, I just ran across mention of a very strange study indeed:
One recent study, for instance, suggests that a child’s shyness is determined, in part, by maternal hormone fluctuations during gestation. Researchers who interviewed several thousand preschoolers in both the United States and New Zealand noted a significant relationship between the incidence of extreme shyness or inhibition (children who seem particularly fearful, anxious, or withdrawn in the presence of a stranger) and the amount of daylight their mothers were exposed to at midpregnancy. Thus, in the United States, only 12% of children born in October-November-December were rated as highly inhibited, compared to nearly 18% of those born in April-May-June. In New Zealand, where daylight hours are reversed, children showed the opposite pattern, with more shy children born in October-November-December than in April-May-June. Because the production of certain hormones, like melatonin, is known to fluctuate with the amount of daylight in each season, the researchers propose that such substances may subtly alter brain development during a critical period at midgestation, when massive numbers of neurons are migrating to form the basic architecture of the cerebral cortex. (It is also possible that other seasonal differences, like changes in women’s diets, physical activity, or exposure to colds and flu, mediate this relationship.)
Is this when science starts telling us that astrology is true? That would be pretty funny.
I’m about 100 pages into a fascinating book called Pushed
. The best way to describe it is as a Fast Food Nation or Omnivore’s Dilemma of the field of obstetrics. The enemy in the book is not necessarily the doctors and physicians, but rather the strange dance between hospitals, insurance companies, and the “malpractice crisis”.
It has turned me from a casual “yeah, it would be nice to avoid an epidural, induction, and Cesarian if possible” to a more emphatic “we should probably try to have the baby outside of the hospital system”.
It doesn’t seem like anyone is really at fault. Everyone is trying to make the business of having babies as safe and efficient as possible, but there are just some pretty glaring conflicts of interest when a doctor needs to pay $900,000/year in malpractice and therefore has to race through births as fast as possible, sacrificing care and patience for fast, risk-adverse, insurance-friendly planned Cesarians.
And then there’s the self-reinforcing loop of wanting to control everything. Inducing a pregnancy that isn’t even to term yet, rather than sending someone back home, for example. The fact that inducing a pregnancy seems to lead to a more painful birth, therefore increasing the need for an epidural. The fact that a failed induction often encourages a Cesarian. All of it could be avoided by simply not going to the hospital until you really need to be there. Or, not going to a hospital at all and having the baby in a birthing center or at home under the care of a licensed midwife.
I’m really coming at this as a complete newbie, so please correct me if I’m incorrect in any of my statements. Esther and I talked about it a bit this morning and think that using the hospital for ultrasounds and all those checkups seems good, and then having the actual baby at a birthing center or under the guidance of a good midwife.
We just need to figure out how much each of these options cost, which things are covered by our minimal maternity insurance, and also talk to our yet-to-be-chosen doctor about some of these things to see where our local hospital is on the spectrum of overly aggressive birthing.
Now, all I gotta do is read them, right?
