Discover How Your Thoughts and Feelings Affect Your Unborn Baby

Positive and Negative Thoughts May Affect Baby’s Genetics

Warning: the information in this chapter may test the belief’s you’ve held about your past, your future, and your level of responsibility in your pregnancy. Contrary to the way you may have learned about “genetics,” the deeper research has already arrived to add rich new layers of hope. That new field is called “epigenetics.” It is what Dr. Oz called “One of the most profoundly important advances of the last decade and has dramatically changed the face of medicine. And we figured it out as doctors, as scientists, by talking about pregnancy.”

In so many ways we are so lucky, for science usually takes many decades to move forward. Today, however, we live the age of shared ideas, the internet, and the most exponential expansion we have ever seen. Our societal movement forward is almost faster than can be imagined, whether the field is technology, engineering, or genetics. Now, get ready for epigenetics!

Negativity or positivism during pregnancy can alter neural development and affect genetic expression, according to new research in the field of epigenetics.

In Biology of Belief, cell biologist, neuroscientist, and Stanford researcher, Bruce Lipton, PhD, discusses how thoughts “perceived by their mothers before birth” allow the unborn infant to “optimize their genetic and physiologic development.”

“It is biologically impossible for a gene to operate independently of its environment: genes are designed to be regulated by signals from their immediate surround,” says Daniel Goleman, in Social Intelligence. The international bestseller continues, “…some of which, in turn, are profoundly influenced by our social interactions.”

Dr. Thomas Verny founded the Association for Prenatal and Perinatal Psychology and Health (APPPAH). In Tomorrows Baby: The Art and Science of Parenting from Conception through Infancy, he writes, “Scientists have come to recognize living organisms as ‘dynamic systems’ capable of actively reprogramming gene behaviors to accommodate environmental challenges.”

“Recognizing the role the prenatal environment plays in creating disease forces a reconsideration of genetic determinism,” says Lipton. He continues, quoting Cornell prenatal physiologist, Peter Nathanielsz, M.D., PhD:

Nathanielsz writes: “there is mounting evidence that programming of lifetime health by the conditions in the womb is equally, if not more important, than our genes in determining how we perform mentally and physically during life.”

Lipton says a pregnant woman’s body adopts one of two possibilities: growth or protection. Growth, he says, is encouraged with positive thinking while “a protection posture” results from negative perceptions.

Positive thoughts may be the ultimate health tip for a pregnant woman:  “That growth-promoting awareness and intention can produce a smarter, healthier and happier baby,” Bruce Lipton, PhD, Biology of Belief.

Much research has been done to prove how the stress response injures the unborn child. The link between negative thoughts, emotions, and the stress response seems clear. The link between optimism and the nurturing of the unborn child would presumably follow the same course of action. This time, “good” hormones, like oxytocin, are likely to be the ones circulating to help baby. But thoughts may have an even more direct route for influencing the DNA.

There is another energy that seems to link emotional thoughts to genetic change. Dr. Joseph Mercola, who runs the largest natural health website in the world, Mercola.com, reported a unique experiment showing just how receptive to thoughts the placenta can be. In the study, The Institute of Heartmath, a non-profit organization dedicated to researching stress and emotional management, used placental DNA. Each of 28 researchers who were “specially trained in how to generate and feel strong emotions on demand,” were given a vial of placental DNA. Researchers found that each placental DNA sample “changed shape according to its researcher’s feelings.” When researchers felt positive emotions, like love, joy and gratitude, the DNA “responded by relaxing: the strands unwound and actually lengthened.” When the researchers felt negative emotions, like anger, fear, frustration, or stress, the DNA “tightened up, became shorter, and even switched off many of its codes.” Finally, when researchers felt positive emotion again, the “codes switched back on.”

This study demonstrates Lipton’s hypothesis of why the infant may adopt a “growth state” versus a “protection posture.” He recommends couples to develop that optimism as soon as they know they want children, “…the latest genetic research suggest(s) that parents should cultivate that twinkle in the months before they conceive a child.”

Regardless of the known or unknown mechanisms involved, the effect is obvious. We happen to live in the time where science has more than proven all the detriments of a pessimistic attitude. In another hundred years, every pregnant mom in the world will be consciously cultivating happy joyful thoughts specifically to foster optimal growth for their unborn children. Today, you can be the first.

From Genetics to Epigenetics

Genetics can no longer be thought of as a futile prescription. Some of you who remember biology class may remember learning about “The Central Dogma,” otherwise known as the “Primacy of DNA.” What is says is this: DNA becomes RNA becomes Protein. Then, those proteins can be used as building blocks for almost anything in the body. Those proteins create cell structure and behavior, and might do fun things like become immune cells or help nutrients get to where they need to go. The “central” theme to this “dogma” was that once it became a protein, it could not go back to RNA or DNA. So, the central dogma, as described by Francis Crick in 1958, would look something like this: DNARNAProtein.

But, like usually happens in the course of scientific history, the scientists kept searching. Some of you have noticed that the arrow goes both ways between DNA and RNA. “In the 1960’s Howard Temin’s challenged the central Dogma with experiments that revealed RNA could go against the predicted flow of information and rewrite the DNA,” writes Lipton. He continues, “Originally ridiculed for his ‘heresy,’ Temin later won a Nobel Prize for describing [how RNA can go back into DNA].”

(In fact, Temin is probably lucky that the “heresy” didn’t cost him his career, family, and friends. The price that pioneers pay when introducing new information that goes against conventional public opinion is not often pretty. The guy who introduced hand washing to hospitals in the 1840’s was so ostracized by his fellow doctors that he went insane and eventually committed suicide. You’ll read about him again in Section 6: Planning a Healthy Labor, Delivery, and Arrival for Your Baby. Needless to say, both RNA Reversal and hand washing are now completely accepted in the scientific community.)

And now for the fun part. “The new science reveals that the information that controls biology starts with Environmental Signals that in turn, control the binding of Regulatory Proteins to the DNA,” writes Lipton. What in the world does that mean? Basically, the Central Dogma was missing two critical pieces:

1. “Protein Covers” wrap around DNA, and play a significant role in allowing the DNA to turn on or off.
2. The stimuli that determine whether or not those “Protein Covers” all the DNA to come out from hiding are “Environmental Signals.”

If we could only be sitting in Molecular Biology classes again now, right! So, basically, the gene is controlled by the Protein Cover (PC) which is controlled by the Environmental Signal (ES). Now, the new “central dogma” is called “Primacy of Environment,” and looks something like this: ESPC DNARNAProtein.

Yes, it can be said that everything affects everything. The critical factor is that Environmental Signals can determine what the genes do. Lipton writes, “Genes are not destiny! Environmental influences, including nutrition, stress and emotions, can modify those genes, without changing their basic blueprint. And those modifications, epigeneticists have discovered, can be passed on to future generations.”

WOW! Pregnant moms have nine entire months to give their baby the happiest healthiest start that could ever be imagined.

The recently-aired Dr. Oz show that focused on development in the womb (and was discussed in the Prologue), further explains how the epigenetics works. Dr. Mehmet Oz is the famous featured-health expert on “The Oprah Winfrey Show” and was honored as Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People, etc, (I know you all know this guy). Dr. Oz said, “We can control which genes get turned on or turned off.”

It works like this. “The copying machine of the body looks for clues” along the DNA strand, says Dr. Oz. When the copy machine comes across external markers, it copies those as well. That marker “could have been influenced by what your mother ate, what was experienced in her life, all kinds of things.” The experiences that create those markers include the thoughts and feelings of the pregnant mom.

Dr. Oz continues, “That little mark…can stop that copy machine, so all of a sudden it sheds what it was copying and disregards it” and the baby then alters its genetic make-up. “It is exactly right,” chimes the co-author of their new book You: Having a Baby. Michael Roizen, MD, says, “We influence how our genes function…we know [this] for some very important things such as your waist size and your intelligence. What you do changes whether those genes are on or not.”

Dr. Oz said that the roots of each person’s obesity, aging, and beauty “go all the way back to the womb and the choices our mother’s made way back then.” What an incredible opportunity for the pregnant mom!

Practicing Optimism Nurtures a Happier Healthier Child

If negative thoughts are the root cause of the destructive stress response, practicing mental imagery can reprogram a positive solution. In Magical Beginnings, Enchanted Lives, Chopra teaches pregnant women how to change their thoughts and feelings toward joy in order to release beneficial chemicals for their unborn baby. Versions of mental imagery are taught by Verny, Lipton, and Chopra.

• “Your thoughts and words are literally made into flesh,” inspires Chopra, “Every experience has an impact on your biology.” His solution is to consciously “choose your experiences.”
• Goleman writes, “Epigenetics shows how our environment [is] translated into the immediate chemical surround of a given cell [and] programs our genes in ways that determine just how active they will be.”
• Dr. Verny says, “No one doubts that the mother’s diet is important to the developing baby…” but “sensation, feeling, and thought—immerse the unborn child in a primordial world of experience, continuously directing the development of the mind.”

And perhaps the wisest of all:

“Pregnancy is not just something that is happening to you; it is a miraculous unfolding that you are co-creating. For nine months, you are your baby’s environment, and your baby is affected by each one of your experiences.” Deepak Chopra, MD, Magical Beginnings, Enchanted Lives

Aim to make your experiences positive and practice until your thoughts and perceptions are filtered through the lens of love. It may be the greatest gift you can pass to your child. The next chapter will guide you…