Annie Murphy Paul says that many of our individual characteristics - our health and our temperaments - may be influenced by the conditions we encountered before birth. Research conducted over the past twenty years, have provided new insights into our earliest experiences and how they influence us from infancy into adulthood.
“Prenatal experience doesn’t force the individual down a particular path,” Annie writes. “At most, it points us in a general direction, and we can take another route if we choose. Imagine water flowing downstream: prenatal influences might dig a canal, so to speak, making it easier for the water to flow one way rather than another.” With effort, “we may be able to channel our fates in a different direction. The theory of fetal origins ought to contribute to complexity, not reduce it; if we take care in how we think about prenatal influences, they may add another layer to our understanding of who we are and how we got to be this way.”
Go here to visit her website. She is currentlyworking on a book on learning - Brilliant: The Science of Smart. In this book she explores new research on learning.
Read a blogpost about Life before Birth here.
Photo: "Baby Boots" by sattva