Babies In and Out of the Womb

I read the Q & A below (only the beginning of the answer) on the web page for Mothering Magazine, here. I find that it raises some interesting points about the personhood of the infant in the womb--or, rather, it indicates a latent assumption that the infant in the womb is indeed a person, something that much pregnancy literature does--while at the same time suggesting that the infant outside of the womb is still so closely linked to the mother that they remain a single unity--suggesting a continuity with the existence in the womb. This is the language of carrying and bearing children, but there are actual pieces of evidence alluded to (though not cited) that support this claim. They can be contradicted, of course, with and without evidence, but they ring so true! I often wonder how these things can be denied.

When I was in the hospital (a Catholic hospital run by a religious order) and my husband and baby were in the room, too, a member of the order entered my room unannounced, asking if we were Mr. and Mrs. Hernandez. We were not. So she went over to the little clear bassinet and admired the baby, giving her a blessing, and then said with a sigh that these little ones are so precious, it is hard to imagine that anyone could want to harm or kill them. I wondered what specifically was on her mind. It was kind of a surreal moment, and comes back to me sometimes, especially when I read horrible news stories about children being killed by their parents, or when I read things like this that stress the connection between mother and unborn/newborn child (do note how the author of the response gently corrects the term "abandoned"):

I have two questions that may be seen as sides of the same coin: how does being abandoned as an infant effect the emotional growth and stability of a person? What are the lasting repercussions on a single mother, or father, who chose not to raise their child, and hence, gave their baby away?

When you say "abandoned," I'm going to assume that you mean, "How does it affect an infant to be permanently separated from his biological mother?" (Usually in this situation the infant isn't technically "abandoned"—as in the fairy tales of babies left alone in the woods—but has other caring adults around to care for him.) Certainly a newborn already has a potent connection to his birth mother at birth; we know this from lots of research into fetal learning, etc. And there is an actual biological process already in place for laying down important circuitry in the brain of the baby (and of the mother, too!) in the hours and days following birth. So when this process is disrupted by separation (for adoption, but even for the shorter periods virtually mandated by standard hospital protocol, to "clean the baby up," and do all the other unnecessary things like pricking, prodding and testing), the baby does suffer at a psycho-biological level (as does the mother.) The cascade of pleasure hormones (including oxytocin, the "hormone of love") that nature designed to make mom and baby enraptured with each other when they remain in skin-to-skin contact in the hours following birth may also play an important part in establishing lifelong "set-points" for feeling pleasure, satisfaction, and contentment. But when separated, and this does not occur, levels of cortisol (stress hormone) rise in the baby's blood, which—depending upon variables such as the infant's temperament and upon any protective factors in the baby's environment—can impact the level of growth hormone and even negatively impact immune function. (As an adopted infant, I contracted pneumonia as a six-month-old—definitely not normal!!) This kind of cascade of stress hormones (especially when it is happening instead of the cascade of pleasure hormones) is suspected to contribute to the baby growing up with a decreased tolerance for stress. And though there may be other caring adults around, we do know that newborns know who their biological mothers are, and who they are not—via pheromones, voice quality, heartbeat, "vibe"—and it is their mothers they want, and need. In fact, from the newborn's perspective, he or she is not differentiated from the mother: they are a mother/baby dyad, at the levels of neurobiology and physiology—a single unit. So for a baby to be made prematurely "an individual" in his or her earliest hours, days or even months does indeed present a challenge for that individual's future growth and stability.

What do you think?

(Read the whole answer, it's well worth it!)