Origins: How the Nine Months Before Birth Shape the Rest of Our Lives

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Origins: How the Nine Months Before Birth Shape the Rest of Our Lives

3.6 of 5 stars 3.60 · rating details · 593 ratings · 147 reviews

What makes us the way we are? Some say it's the genes we inherit at conception. Others are sure it's the environment we experience in childhood. But could it be that many of our individual characteristics—our health, our intelligence, our temperaments—are influenced by the conditions we encountered before birth? That's the claim of an exciting and provocative field known a...more What makes us the way we are? Some say it's the genes we inherit at conception. Others are sure it's the environment we experience in childhood. But could it be that many of our individual characteristics—our health, our intelligence, our temperaments—are influenced by the conditions we encountered before birth? That's the claim of an exciting and provocative field known as fetal origins. Over the past twenty years, scientists have been developing a radically new understanding of our very earliest experiences and how they exert lasting effects on us from infancy well into adulthood. Their research offers a bold new view of pregnancy as a crucial staging ground for our health, ability, and well-being throughout life.Author and journalist Annie Murphy Paul ventures into the laboratories of fetal researchers, interviews experts from around the world, and delves into the rich history of ideas about how we're shaped before birth. She discovers dramatic stories: how individuals gestated during the Nazi siege of Holland in World War II are still feeling its consequences decades later; how pregnant women who experienced the 9/11 attacks passed their trauma on to their offspring in the womb; how a lab accident led to the discovery of a common household chemical that can harm the developing fetus; how the study of a century-old flu pandemic reveals the high personal and societal costs of poor prenatal experience. Origins also brings to light astonishing scientific findings: how a single exposure to an environmental toxin may produce damage that is passed on to multiple generations; how conditions as varied as diabetes, heart disease, and mental illness may get their start in utero; why the womb is medicine's latest target for the promotion of lifelong health, from preventing cancer to reducing obesity. The fetus is not an inert being, but an active and dynamic creature, responding and adapting as it readies itself for life in the particular world it will enter. The pregnant woman is not merely a source of potential harm to her fetus, as she is so often reminded, but a source of influence on her future child that is far more powerful and positive than we ever knew. And pregnancy is not a nine-month wait for the big event of birth, but a momentous period unto itself, a cradle of individual strength and wellness and a crucible of public health and social equality.

With the intimacy of a personal memoir and the sweep of a scientific revolution, Origins presents a stunning new vision of our beginnings that will change the way you think about yourself, your children, and human nature itself.(less)

Hardcover, 240 pages

Published September 28th 2010 by Free Press

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Nov 28, 2010 Elizabeth rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: nonfiction

The information in this book was pretty fascinating. I picked it up after listening to this story by the author on NPR a few weeks ago. Although I think the book could have been much better organized and edited to avoid excruciating repetitiveness (Dutch Hunger Winter: I'm looking at you), I enjoyed it overall.

The book details the emerging scientific research showing that the fetal period can be a powerful source of influence over who we are as people -- focusing in particular on the mother's n...more The information in this book was pretty fascinating. I picked it up after listening to this story by the author on NPR a few weeks ago. Although I think the book could have been much better organized and edited to avoid excruciating repetitiveness (Dutch Hunger Winter: I'm looking at you), I enjoyed it overall.

The book details the emerging scientific research showing that the fetal period can be a powerful source of influence over who we are as people -- focusing in particular on the mother's nutrition while pregnant; the pollutants, drugs and infections the fetus was exposed to during gestation; and the mother's health, stress level and emotional state while pregnant. I'm not sure this was a great time for me to read this book, considering it occasionally FREAKED me out about all the things I did wrong early on that are no longer within my control (or the things I may continue to do wrong that are way out of my control).

A few of the fascinating yet utterly unhelpful facts I learned while reading this book:

*If you're pregnant, it's better to be a crack addict than an alcoholic, although if you're going to be an alcoholic, it's better to be a rich one.

*The smaller your baby is, the greater its risk of obesity/heart disease/schizophrenia, etc. later in life. At the same time, women gain too much weight during pregnancy, which increases their babies' risk of health problems later in life.

*You should eat tons of fish while pregnant because omega 3s are vital to the emotional health, physical health, and cognitive development of your baby. But you should not eat fish because of the high mercury content. Unless it's sardines (no mercury for some reason), which I don't think I have ever seen anyone eat. Ever. Even Sam. Don't they have bones? Ick!

*If there is a major disaster (flood, famine, ice storm, nazi invasion) while one is in one's second month of pregnancy, the baby is pretty much screwed all around.

*People who live in Manhattan, like the author, have a much better selection of convenient, healthy take-out than any place I have ever lived, which makes me tremendously jealous and bitter.

*65% of women take some sort of over the counter medicine while pregnant (mostly allergy medicine or tylenol). The author was totally SHOCKED and DISMAYED and JUDGY about how high this number was considering no one really knows exactly how these drugs affect human fetuses; I was shocked about how low it was, considering how miserable pregnancy already is without also adding unchecked allergy symptoms and hormone headaches.

BTW, if you are interested in the topic, but don't feel like wading through this entire book, Time Magazine recently had a good article about it, which was written by this same author.(less)

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Apr 15, 2013 Andrew rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: health-at-work, healthy-living, genetics

Good compendium of research into the fetal origins of performance and health into adulthood. The role of epigenetics, "switches" that get passed from one generation to the next DESPITE no changes in the underlying gene code, are a fascinating middle ground between nurture and nature. Turns out nurture can alter nature in a Lamarkian form of inheritance lastly as many as three generations. For example, pregnant women that lived through the 1918 'flu epidemic gave birth to kids and grandkids with...more

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Apr 12, 2013 Kelly rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: pregnancy-childbirth

Delving into the murky waters of perinatal research, Annie Murphy Paul introduces us to the relatively new concept of "fetal origins". No longer will the growing fetus be considered a passive creature, impervious to the world outside the placenta. Although we have long known that the placenta does not protect infants from the affects of alcohol and smoking, how the fetus is influenced by it's environment is more complex and far-reaching than we could have imagined. Paul visits studies on the imp...more Delving into the murky waters of perinatal research, Annie Murphy Paul introduces us to the relatively new concept of "fetal origins". No longer will the growing fetus be considered a passive creature, impervious to the world outside the placenta. Although we have long known that the placenta does not protect infants from the affects of alcohol and smoking, how the fetus is influenced by it's environment is more complex and far-reaching than we could have imagined. Paul visits studies on the impact of children born to mothers who were pregnant during periods of high stress, the results of which will surprise you then takes us to studies of cord blood, which finds, on average, over 200 industrial pollutants and chemicals.

Engaging and well-researched, this book is a good read for mothers to be who are curious about where all the do's and dont's of pregnancy come from but is relevant enough to the general population to be on any bookshelf.

Strikingly absent from the book are several common procedures that deserve at least the same scrutiny with which she dissected the reason behind not eating a tuna sandwich during pregnancy. I was surprised by her scant mention of the use of modern sonography, which, while she points out has given us brand new insight into the lives of our growing fetus, was introduced into common practice with little or no safety testing. While she laments that most medications prescribed to pregnant women haven't received sufficient safety testing, this topic never comes up in regards to the venerable sonogram, whose use has become so ingrained into the normal pregnancy cycle that most people never stop to question it. I think Paul might be surprised to learn that x-ray was previously used, with devastating effects, before sonograms were finally introduced.

I was also expecting to see a discussion on the effect of the mode of delivery on the infant (and the mother), including the impact of epidurals, which are loaded with drugs that, up until the moment of labor, would be vigorously recommended against, and the impact of other medical interventions like the cesearean section and assisted deliveries. However, her only mention of the topic is that C-sections are less "stressful" to babies, who have lower levels of cortisol following delivery than by other modes.

Perhaps these omissions are indicative of the fear of harming our unborn children in-utero that she alludes to at several points in her book. It is easier to analyze the things during our pregnancy that might be harmful when we ourselves haven't exposed our fetus' to them. She herself had several sonograms and a scheduled cesearean delivery.

With crucial pieces of the pregnancy puzzle missing and only a very simplistic explanation of the studies behind the findings, the book at times gets repetitive and focuses a bit too often on the authors personal journey, but I was still able to follow through to the end. Even with an incomplete picture of everything that we might expose our fetus to in the 9 (actually 10) months leading up to birth, this book is worthy of reading. It brings to light many of the myths and shocking truths about life before we are born and just how much that can influence who we become. It really is important to eat well and keep the stress levels down, my fellow pregnant friends, as science is beginning to prove it.(less)

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Jan 10, 2013 Robbins Library rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: jenny-recommends, nonfiction

"When we hold our babies for the first time, we imagine them clean and new, unmarked by life, when in fact they have already been shaped by the world, and by us. It's a koan of parenthood, one worthy of long contemplation: We are meeting someone we know well for the very first time."

It's widely accepted that early childhood development is important. Now, scientists' attention is turning to the even earlier stage of fetal development. Annie Murphy Paul, a science writer and a mother, delves into...more

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Jan 05, 2013 Jae rated it 4 of 5 stars

Thoroughly enjoyed this survey on the emerging field of fetal origins, the study of fetal experiences on the future person. Though much of the information presented was not new, as it won't be for most people who keep a casual eye on the news, the book gave me a deeper and broader understanding of the vulnerability and the 'aliveness' of fetuses in general and my own little one, specifically. And that's probably my biggest takeaway from Origins - that rather than being in passive hibernation for...more

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Jul 13, 2012 Lightreads rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: nonfiction

You know, it is hard to find relevant books when you are really interested in gestation but not at all interested in babies. I frequently find myself in conversations these days with one of my compatriots in Project Make a Baby Like a Boss that go something like, “blah something something childhood development blah, what do you think?” And I go, “not my department – hey, have you read that cool stuff about omega 3 intake in the first trimester correlated with better labor outcomes?”*

This one is...more You know, it is hard to find relevant books when you are really interested in gestation but not at all interested in babies. I frequently find myself in conversations these days with one of my compatriots in Project Make a Baby Like a Boss that go something like, “blah something something childhood development blah, what do you think?” And I go, “not my department – hey, have you read that cool stuff about omega 3 intake in the first trimester correlated with better labor outcomes?”*

This one is pretty close, though as usual I would have honestly preferred a textbook over popular science. There’s a lot of pretty great stuff here. The sections on the perinatal transmission of vulnerability to PTSD were particularly striking, and I was delighted to finally come across a sensible biological explanation for the finding that the more older brothers a boy has, the more likely he is to be gay. None of this creepy Freudian incestuous homoeroticism bullshit, thank you.

Still, there just isn’t all that much to epigenetics to talk about yet. Insert joke about a science in the embryonic stages here. And while Paul writes a good survey, all her shopping at Whole Foods, living in Manhattan, attending pre-natal meditation classes makes it pretty painful when she starts going on about the plight of poor mothers and the things “we” can do to make sure “they” have access to the sanitation/nutrition/medicine necessary for healthier gestation. It’s not that we need to force women to make healthy choices, you know, we just need to encourage it. Uh-huh. Said with the blithe ignorance of someone who’s never been on the wrong end of a government poverty program based in “science”, like I have.

*Personally, I think the way the four of us are dividing the labor on this one is brilliant, even if it’s dictated by medical necessity, since the people required to feed/care for the shrieking infant will not be the person who has just shoved a shrieking infant out through her v-hole. I’m just saying. Sensible.
(less)

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Jul 11, 2012 Paul Signorelli rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: education, learning

Those of us fascinated by learning and how we are affected by the places where learning occurs find ourselves exploring a wonderfully unexpected learning space in Annie Murphy Paulâ��s "Origins: How the Nine Months Before Birth Shape the Rest of Our Lives": the womb. It is Paul's contention, throughout this well-researched and thought-provoking book, that we haven't given nearly enough attention to all we learn and acquire in those critical nine months before we enter the world. "Origins" is a g...more

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Jun 12, 2011 April Helms rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: nonfiction

This is a fascinating (and occassionally disturbing) read for those interested in childhood development and epigenetics. The author parallels her own thoughts and experiences with her second pregnancy with the growing bodies of evidence that are showing the incredible impact of the environment, nutrition and other factors on the unborn child -- effects that can be felt and documented even decades later. Two examples that struck me:
One was a study of children and adults who were in-utero during...more This is a fascinating (and occassionally disturbing) read for those interested in childhood development and epigenetics. The author parallels her own thoughts and experiences with her second pregnancy with the growing bodies of evidence that are showing the incredible impact of the environment, nutrition and other factors on the unborn child -- effects that can be felt and documented even decades later. Two examples that struck me:
One was a study of children and adults who were in-utero during the 1944 "Hunger Winter" in the Netherlands. The famine, brought on by a tight German blockade coupled with an unusually severe and early winter, left an estimated 18,000 dead. Those children who were still in the womb during this time were not only smaller than average, but their own children were smaller than average. The children studied also had a significantly higher pecentage of ailments such as heart disease and cancer, even decades later. Higher rates of schizophrenia and other neurological disorders were also found among children who had been in the second trimester during the Hunger Winter (and, indeed, in other famines and times of intense stress).
The second is more recent: the ice storm that struck parts of the northern United States and Canada. This storm shut down some cities for several days. Researchers conducted two studies on children who had been in-utero at the time of the storm. They noticed significant delays in development when the children were toddlers, compared to children who had not been impacted by the storm, and in IQ. Those children were tested about a decade later; while the gap between those who were impacted by the storm and those who were not had closed somewhat, that gap still remained. At least one researcher quoted in the book said she was surprised that such a sizable gap would have remained, even a decade later.
The implications of such studies are sobering, to say the least.
I liked the writing style and the author's own asides about her pregnancy, and she doesn't seem to leave any stone unturned, any side or angle unmentioned. I do like how Paul at least tries to give the positives -- what can be done to help improve the unborn child's future. But many things seem rather daunting. Also, there were a couple pieces of advice that might seem a bit misguided. For example, she said she eschewed some fish because of mercury concerns (understandable) and instead went for others, including catfish. Huh? I don't know about the mercury concerns of catfish, but that is not a fish I'd recommend, given its feeding patterns (bottom feeders tend to be chock full of other pollutants, and I don't know the safety of farmed fish other than often its no safer.) Also, her observation of how children born via C-section don't feel pain as intensely as those born "naturally" was, while may be true, left the impression that voluntary C-sections should be done more. Sorry -- but while C-sections are sometimes necessary, they can bring a whole host of other problems for the mother and infant (higher rates of respiratory ailments in newborns, for example).
I do like how the book was chaptered-- nine chapters for nine months. I do wonder if the information could have been a bit better organized. I've read far worse, but a couple things got repeated, and there were similar items that should have been grouped together. It's not bad -- the themes are fairly well established per chapter. It just needed tweaked. All in all, I really enjoyed this book.(less)

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Mar 18, 2011 Stephanie rated it 2 of 5 stars

A book written for the masses that attempts to distill some interesting research. It has a catchy one-word title (in the vein of "Bonk") and an Upper West Side Manhattanite's perspective on her own life and pregnancy mixed in with the reporting bits (a la Michael Pollan).
So: the research is interesting, though I've seen most of it already in the science and medical news, and I find the pop-science way of describing studies distracting, since there is never quite enough information there for me...more

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Feb 06, 2011 Ciara rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: autobio-memoir, read-in-2011

a really interesting & engaging (in my opinion) book about fetal origins. that is to say, how the prenatal environment affects a person after s/he is born.

the author was pregnant while writing the book, so it is split into nine chapters, each of which represents one month of gestation, from conception to birth. the chapter breaks don't really have anything to do with anything. "chapter five" didn't really have anything to do specifically with the prenatal environment in month five of human g...more a really interesting & engaging (in my opinion) book about fetal origins. that is to say, how the prenatal environment affects a person after s/he is born.

the author was pregnant while writing the book, so it is split into nine chapters, each of which represents one month of gestation, from conception to birth. the chapter breaks don't really have anything to do with anything. "chapter five" didn't really have anything to do specifically with the prenatal environment in month five of human gestation or anything. it was just kind of a cute way to split up the book. or an annoying gimmick, depending on how you feel about the memoir aspect of the book.

personally, i didn't mind it. but nor did i relate at all. not only am i not pregnant or a mother (yet), but i do not live on the upper west side of manhattan & i am not employed by the "new york times". i do not live upstairs from a fancy grocery store at which i shop at least once a day. i am unlikely to name my future children teddy or gus. some reviewers found the pregnancy memoir part of the book really, really annoying, & i can understand why they felt that way, for sure. there's definitely a "liberal yuppie" vibe to it that is pretty grating. but i guess i have a secret soft spot for liberal yuppie memoirs. i learn something new about myself every day!

i definitely found the science stuff far more interesting. apparently the science of fetal origins is a rather emerging field. paul explains that historically, doctors had themselves convinced that the placenta provided a faultless protective barrier between a fetus & the outside world--including any hormones or toxins to which the gestating woman was exposed. of course, now we know that that's not true. pregnant women are routinely informed about the dangers of smoking, drinking, eating soft cheeses, taking medications, etc during pregnancy. but researchers in the field of fetal origins are discovering that the prenatal environment may be impacting fetuses in all kinds of ways--many of which the mother really has no control over at all.

paul routinely comes back to the idea that all of this emphasis on fetal origins may cause evn more maternal guilt if, say, fifty years down the line, a person develops type 2 diabetes. (there is some evidence supporting the possibility that a prenatal environment indicating food scarcity may genetically prepare a fetus for a world of poor nutrition; upon being born into a world full of chicken mcnuggets & honey roasted peanuts, that baby grows into an adult that has a more difficult time regulating his blood sugar. for example.) definitely i was concerned when i first heard about the book that it was going to be yet another tome that blames mothers for every last little thing that can possibly go wrong with their children. paul seems to make an effort to avoid that...but as other reviewers pointed out, she spills about six pages of ink wringing her hands over how frequently pregnant women in the u.s. take over-the-counter painkillers, even though there isn't any indication that they are linked to significant numbers of birth defects or poor fetal outcomes. so...that's a little weird.

a lot of the fetal origins research also seems somewhat contradictory, or irrelevant, or has discovered correlations that may or may not have much to do with causation, or has discovered outcomes in such tiny numbers that the relevance to the greater body of fetal existence seems almost inconsequential. i mean, you can take pretty much any story & spin its results so they sound really exciting & important. that's how studies get published. & publishing is how scientists secure funding. it's all kind of a shell game sometimes. do i need to know that women in sweden were negatively impacted by the radioactive fall-out from the chernobyl disaster, leading to behavior & cognition problems in their children, without even realizing it? not really. i guess it's kind of interesting, but it's not like i have any power to really protect myself or my unborn children if there is nuclear disaster 1000 miles away from me. ditto all the stuff about the great leap forward & the hunger winter. it's not like i didn't already have a hunch that malnutrition might be bad for my fetus, anyway.

i guess what i'm saying is that this is really interesting...but it's also worth taking it all with a great big grain of salt. (less)

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Jan 21, 2011 Kat rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: nonfiction, pregnancy

I sought this book out after reading the chapter in "YOU: Having a Baby" about fetal programming and epigenetics, which I find fascinating, especially now as I do preliminary research before preparing to get pregnant. The author compiles various studies that you may have heard about before in other books or documentaries, such as the biological effects of famines and trauma on future generations, the links between environmental toxins and various developmental disorders, how maternal bonds are f...more

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Jan 01, 2011 Dora rated it 2 of 5 stars

I thought there was interesting information in this book-- a lot of cutting edge research being done in this field, and I liked learning about the various effects of the mother's lived experience on a fetus. Unfortunately, the tone was absolutely unbearable.

First of all, I appreciate that the author gave a nod to how there is a terible cultural policing of women's bodies during pregnancy these days, and how much that bothers her. Then she tries to explain that her book is different! She's going...more

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Dec 27, 2010 Jill rated it 3 of 5 stars

Well, this book certains give a pregnant woman a lot to contemplate. First my pet peev: Why does every part-memoir, part-nonfiction writer live in New York? Also, is there a new category for this type of contrived non-fiction memoir? It isn't exactly memoir since the authors know going in that they will be relating their interesting factoids to their personal experience.

Anyway, Annie Murphy Paul cites plenty of interesting studies and references to allow the book to stand on its own--without th...more

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Nov 29, 2010 Megan rated it 3 of 5 stars

If you have been pregnant recently, a fair amount of the information in this book will not be completely new-- a lot of this is what appears in the average book that you would pick up to read while preparing for pregnancy. Some of the more recent epigenetics is outside of the kind of content that those "when you're expecting" books cover. That being said, many of the examples that Paul covered are examples that I had read about in the news.

Paul weaves the scientific information in with informat...more

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Oct 18, 2010 Angela rated it 3 of 5 stars Recommends it for: micromanaging pregnant people (hi Christie)

Recommended to Angela by: nytimes review

In Origins, Paul attempts to explain how intrauterine influences - dietary, emotional, hormonal, epigenetic, etc. - affect the futures of the people fetuses become. It's an interesting premise, hinted fascinatingly at in one of my favorite environmental books, Theo Colburn's Our Stolen Future. While the research has certainly progressed in the ten years since, Paul's book still feels a bit light.

The book is nominally structured into nine month-based chapters, but these aren't used to discuss so...more In Origins, Paul attempts to explain how intrauterine influences - dietary, emotional, hormonal, epigenetic, etc. - affect the futures of the people fetuses become. It's an interesting premise, hinted fascinatingly at in one of my favorite environmental books, Theo Colburn's Our Stolen Future. While the research has certainly progressed in the ten years since, Paul's book still feels a bit light.

The book is nominally structured into nine month-based chapters, but these aren't used to discuss some of the key developments that can be influenced by outside forces at each stage; instead, Paul mostly uses the premise to turn any subject back to her own pregnancy, at times lapsing into uncomfortable overshare as she gives us enough information to steal her elder son's identity along with the minutiae of her second pregnancy. The book is arranged more topically than chronologically, beginning with a discussion of dietary influences, then swinging through emotional events, alcohol and drugs, and mental health. She mentions epigenetics but unfortunately doesn't go into much detail about recent findings, which is unfortunate, since this is one of the least common sense and most interesting aspects of human fetal biology.

There are plenty of fascinating tidbits of information here and good overviews of the effects of historical crises (like the Mao-induced Great Leap Forward famine around 1960, or the Dutch Hunger Winter of 1944-45). Poor alcoholics are much more likely to give birth to babies with fetal alcohol syndrome than wealthier alcoholics, even if both drink heavily during pregnancy; the hypothesis is that better nutrition protects against alcohol's effects. Babies born after wars and famines are more likely to suffer from schizophrenia. Confirming an old wives' tale, women pregnant with girls are more likely to suffer morning sickness while those pregnant with boys have larger appetites, probably due to hormones trasmitted from fetus to mother. Much of it is common sense, some is an interesting validation of historical wisdom. I did get the impression, though, that Annie Paul never leaves Manhattan, and anyone outside this microcosm either gets a phone call or doesn't get interviewed.

Perhaps the strangest part of the book is at the end, where Paul compares assisted (that means grabbing the baby with tongs and yanking), vaginal, and c-section births, and comes to the conclusion that they go from more to less stressful on the baby in that order. Paul had a scheduled c-section herself, and I have no interest in finding out her own reasons or debating her choices, but I think this makes her fail, somewhat, to question the effects of the move to higher c-section rates over the last 10 years. There aren't really any downsides to this posited, let alone confirmed or debunked. It's a bit odd next to a book like Pushed (read last year with my book club), which is much less keen on sections.

All in all, Origins contains a lot of fascinating information, viewed through a slightly myopic lens. I enjoyed reading it, but will keep waiting for someone to do the topic better justice.(less)

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May 21, 2012 Julie rated it 4 of 5 stars

This was a very interesting account of the science surrounding how the nine months before birth impact an individual's life. The author was pregnant at the time that she wrote it, so she incorporates science with her own thoughts and musings, which makes it a little more interesting. It's definitely more in the vein of a Malcolm Gladwell book than a serious work of science, since she incorporates history, science, psychology, and social commentary, but that makes it a little more readable.

The bo...more

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Oct 15, 2010 Laura rated it 4 of 5 stars

For the most part, I found this one riveting and strangely empowering. It's the total opposite of the evil "What to Expect" empire: Paul writes for smart readers, and explores ways women can potentially positively influence the adulthood of their child while it's in utero. I appreciated reading, "Eat sardines and chocolate, to maybe make your baby smarter and smile more" rather than "DON'T eat [huge list of stuff] or else your baby will be deformed." Positive suggestions and ideas always work be...more

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Jan 23, 2012 Sara rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: nonfiction, science-and-nature, parenting-and-preggo

The positive: This book starts out with the idea that pregnant women get blamed for literally everything that ends up being wrong with their children, and that this state of affairs is both unfair and unrealistic. Which is great! The writing is generally good in that pop-science-confessional way, and this was a quick and easy read. Don't worry, the last thirty pages or so of the page count are the notes and bibliography; the book proper is right around 200 pages.

The negative: Unfortunately, afte...more

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Dec 26, 2010 Kelly (TheWellReadRedhead) rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: nonfiction, pregnancy-motherhood-baby

As is typical of my current pregnant state, I was hot and cold with this book. It's introduced in such a way that it makes you believe you WON'T be reading a diatribe about all the terrible things that you could do during pregnancy to ruin your child. This seems to be accurate at first, but honestly, by the end of the book I just felt overwhelmed with all the potential disasters I could be inflicting upon this fetus. I know that Paul occasionally reiterates the fact that fetal origins research d...more

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Mar 06, 2012 Anna Edwards rated it 3 of 5 stars

I read this book for my job and was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the information and writing. This is not a book that I would have picked up on my own.

This book was written by Annie Murphy Paul as a way to understand the impact of nine months we spend in utero and to understand her own pregnancy. The book discusses the impact of fetal and maternal experience on the future health of a child.

This book also had one of the most nuanced discussions of abortion that I have seen in years. Ra...more

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Feb 07, 2011 Erin rated it 2 of 5 stars

I really wanted to like this book, and in fact, I was looking forward to reading it. I had heard of the author from her "Tiger Mother" article in Time magazine on 1/31, so when I learned about her subject expertise (fetal origins), I thought it would be a perfect "pregnancy reading" for me. I guess I just had really high expectations (and hopes).

The book, itself, is a pretty quick read. She weaves into her research tales and anecdotes of her own pregnancy (#2), which makes it a bit more "human."...more

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Mar 19, 2012 Lily rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2012, health, nonfiction, parenting

Lauren--this book was written by the author of the article you posted on how our brains operate on fiction. I like her so much! At one point in the book, she rereads "Brave New World" and relates it to how society currently sets the stage for social inequity starting with prenatal care. Very interesting.

Also, although there is burgeoning interest in how fetal life predisposes individuals to physical, emotional, and psychiatric wellness/illness (and the book is basically a summation of recent st...more

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Jan 06, 2011 Asha Tenbroeke rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: science-non-fiction

It is always nice if an accomplished science writer takes on a subject that hasn't really been covered extensively before. Fortunately for us, that is exactly what Annie Murphy Paul does in Origins. She covers the subject of outside influences on the development of the growing foetus with ease, and even takes it one step further when she links the scientific research she encounters with her own experiences during her second pregnancy (Paul is pregnant while researching and writing the book). Thi...more

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Oct 07, 2010 Carolina rated it 3 of 5 stars

If women skip breakfast, they are more likely to get pregnant with a girl? Morning sickness has been said to be a psychological response of "secretly rejecting" your baby? This book is interesting, but most points are theoretical only. I doubt the intrauterine environment is really more influential than epigenetics. So if a mother is depressed during pregnancy, are her hormones REALLY going to make the fetus more likely to develop depression later in life, or is the mother just passing on her de...more

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Apr 08, 2011 Alison rated it 3 of 5 stars

This was a good compilation of current research into prenatal experience and how those might affect the grown adults. It's by a NY Times science writer who also happened to be pregnant at the time so some of her personal story was woven in to the narrative. Here are the things I disliked: The table of contents was so vague (one month, two months,...) as to be completely useless. The subjects in each month had nothing to do with whether it was one month or seven and there was no way to even guess...more

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Feb 06, 2011 Sarah rated it 3 of 5 stars

Recommended to Sarah by: On Point NPR show

This book is full of fascinating facts based on research into fetal origins. Some things I found especially interesting include:

* According to some researchers, about one-third of gay men are gay because their mothers had more sons before them. The researchers hypothesize that this is because the mother's immune system manufactures antibodies directed at proteins secreted by male fetuses. When she becomes pregnant with another son, these antibodies allegedly affect the baby's developing brain in...more This book is full of fascinating facts based on research into fetal origins. Some things I found especially interesting include:

* According to some researchers, about one-third of gay men are gay because their mothers had more sons before them. The researchers hypothesize that this is because the mother's immune system manufactures antibodies directed at proteins secreted by male fetuses. When she becomes pregnant with another son, these antibodies allegedly affect the baby's developing brain in a way that predisposes him to homosexuality. According to these researchers, the more older brothers a boy has, the more likely he is to be gay.
* Babies reap the same benefits their moms do from cardiovascular exercise: their heart rates and heart-rate variability are lower than those of fetuses whose moms don't exercise.
One emerging consensus coming about due to fetal origins research is that one's disposition to heart disease may have as much to do with prenatal nutrition as one's diet and activity level. Specifically, a lack of healthful nutrients during gestation seems to predispose offspring to cardiac and other organ problems.

These are just a few examples of the interesting research that Murphy Paul writes about. The reason I can’t give the book more stars is that the author seems particularly prone to confirmation bias; she is all too eager to unquestioningly accept research that supports her theories, and is apt to confuse causation with correlation. One example of this is Murphy Paul’s descriptions of the effects of obese mothers on their babies. She cites a study comparing the obesity rates of children born to the same mothers pre- and post- gastric bypass surgery. The kids gestated post-surgery were 52 percent less likely to be obese than siblings born to the same mom when she was obese. Murphy Paul takes this as proof that the changed physiology of the mother causes the changed obesity rates of the post-surgery offspring.

I found this conclusion arresting, because anyone who successfully loses and keeps weight off after bariatric surgery has made major changes to her diet and presumably her household environment that supports that diet. Murphy Paul erroneously drawing these conclusions, and blindly accepting research results and/or confusing causation with correlation, cast a pall over the rest of the book for me. It made me doubt whether I could trust her reporting of the clinical studies. Fortunately, the book is well-sourced, so I can personally look up any studies that I have questions about.

Another thing that disturbed me was how Murphy Paul blindly seemed to use the research she found to justify her own experiences. She was pregnant at the time she wrote the book, and it flows between data about fetal origins and how that meshes with Murphy Paul’s experiences as a pregnant woman. Both of her sons were born via cesarean sections, and I found myself rolling my eyes when she was extolling their virtues, such as the assertion that children born via c-section are less likely to experience pain as infants. There was no information whatsoever about the very real risk of c-sections to fetuses. In the interest of fairness in a book about fetal origins science, I would have preferred a more balanced look at the pros and cons of vaginal and caesarean births for the baby in light of current research on the topic.

Overall, this is a very entertaining read, but take it with a gigantic grain of salt.
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Jan 03, 2011 Alex Templeton rated it 4 of 5 stars

Using her own second pregnancy as an outline, Paul writes about the science of what she deems “fetal origins”—the science of how conditions inside the womb can affect a fetus long after it is born. This included the ideas that stress during pregnancy can affect the later child’s response to stressful situations, that lack of a nutritious diet can lead to obesity, as the fetus learns to hold onto calories; etc. This is part of a science called epigenetics—how gene expression is influenced by envi...more

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Dec 15, 2010 Karen rated it 3 of 5 stars

This is just about equal parts fascinating, guilt-inducing and annoying. Fascinating because there really are lots of tidbits I didn't know about. For example, pregnant mice fed junk food produce baby mice who are way more likely to prefer junk food over rat chow and eat way more calories. And most of the crack babies from the 80s are doing just fine - seems it is much worse to have an alcoholic mother than a crack-addicted one. Guilt-inducing because I didn't know some of this stuff when I was...more

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Apr 16, 2011 Kristen rated it 4 of 5 stars

Recommended to Kristen by: Jennifer

Interesting accessible-science read. Perhaps a few too many personal touches by the author (who was pregnant while she was researching the book), but overall a good mix of science and anecdote. There isn't a clear organization to the book, almost as if it was just written in the order that she researched it. But as it tries to prove the genre of fetal origins as a whole, it does a good job. She really delves into many different scientists work, and I was impressed by the depth and breadth of her...more

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Nov 08, 2010 Avi Roy rated it 3 of 5 stars

The book encouragingly begins with a whistle-stop tour of fetal development/developmental origins research. Unfortunately, it quickly turns into a melodramatic and personal narrative about motherhood. A significant chunk of the book is dedicated to historical drama and ideas regarding motherhood/pregnancy and it's impact on the child. Although, these historical detours are peppered with current data regarding environmental impacts on pregnancy and child development. All this leaves very little t...more

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“The world has its way with us long before we're born.” — 4 people liked it

“For many centuries people have believed that there is continuity between the individual in utero and the individual in the world; now there is solid evidence that this ancient belief is correct, albeit in a far more complex and nuanced way than our ancestors ever imagined.
But science can't tell us everything we need to know about this new perspective; there's always a gap where the hard evidence of the laboratory meets the soft flesh of our bodies.” — 3 people liked it

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