Adversity in the Womb and How It Affects All of Our Lives

Over the years I have quoted a great number of studies showing how womb-life experience can carry on for a lifetime. What seems to be evident is that the chronic moods of the carrying mother produce the same or similar effects in her offspring. One way we imprint these deleterious experiences is through the process of methylation. We recruit part of the methyl chemical group to enhance or seal-in the repression of the memory. And the importance of our proposed research is to show how remote/early experience changes the neurophysiology of us humans for a lifetime.

I have explained that traumatic imprints change our biology and our neurology; the process of repression of these pains may play into such serious afflictions as cancer and Alzheimers disease. But what we want to show is that we can reverse the imprint or alter it a bit with our therapy. What I have proposed is that in reliving the primal imprint we lessen its effects, and once that is done can we actually short-circuit or demythelize the imprint. Can demythelation abort the advance of a serious disease? I think so. We need to prove it.

But the theory should guide us here; deep repression, heavy methylation is the culprit in many afflictions, not the least of which is depression. Can we intervene in time to avoid the advance of both physical and mental disease? We do attack the key primordial imprints at their source. And since we lessen chronic cortisol (alarm reactions) levels, as well as lowering blood pressure, body temperature and heart rate, we already have evidence of the reversal of key indices of neurosis/imprinted pain. It seems to me that the system functions as a whole, and when we relive and relieve many of the concomitants of the imprinted pain we are affecting the imprint directly. Otherwise why would the stress hormones continue to decrease in many of our patients as the result of our therapy? What I am indicating also is that undoing repression may contribute to a longer lifespan for our patients, something we shall measure through telomere lengths.

Methylation is becoming critically important in current science. What has been found recently is that if a stretch of DNA has a lot of methyl surrounding it the activity of some of the genes is suppressed. And they found in a study of twins where one was healthy and the other had a split spine (New Scientist, 31, Aug. 2013), that the possible cause was a plethora of methyl in the area which down some of the activity of growth; growth was suppressed. Methyl and repression seem to be more and more blood sisters. It’s hard to get one without the other. We are finding that more and more of harm such as pesticides is agented by the methyl group; that is, methylation patterns are altered. And it may also be that prolonged smoking may have impacted methylation as to produce enduring harm.

I have wondered why it is that we see wisdom teeth dropping after the age of forty in some patients, or why there is marked foot growth in their thirties. Methylation may be one answer since, an assumption, what seems to happen is that we do in part is reverse methylation, allowing certain structures to continue their voyage to their proper destination. In other words, methylation blocks or aborts genetic evolution, puts it on hold until it is revisited and then allows it to continue along its genetic arc.

Regarding the twin study, the authors seem to think that even though the twins share the same womb, the methylation for each of them can be different. And this may ultimately affect how each person interacts with others later on; making for marked differences.

What brought this home to me was a recent article in Science News (Also Human Health, Brain and Behavior, Aug. 25, 2013) (see http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/352184/description/Caffeine_shakes_up_growing_mouse_brains). Mice given caffeine while pregnant changed the brains of the offspring. Also, a set of mice drank water treated with caffeine, (an amount a woman would drink while carrying--about 3 cups of coffee a day). There were direct effects on parts of the limbic system, particularly the hippocampus. There were fewer neurons in these structures that deal with memory in the mice. And more, these caffeinated mice did poorly on tests of memory. These mice did not explore new stimuli and had what I think was aspects of ADD. They were not as curious as normal mice. Their brains seemed rewired. And it is not a big step to see the implications for humans. A mother does not have to have drunk coffee to produce adverse effects; she simply needs to be in a chronic agitated, nervous state. It is exactly as if she drank many cups of coffee. The fetus picks up on this automatically and reacts accordingly. Neurons in the limbic system, then, became hyperactive, as well. And that chronic agitation keeps focus and concentration from happening.

During sessions with in-dwelling thermisters in our patients we can observe changes in blood pressure as the patient relives key imprints. It lowers when primal pains are relived and rise when repression is evident. We see this clearly also with body temperature; depressives come to sessions with low body temp and we see it normalize when they relive early traumas. In other words as key memories are relived the accouterments of the memory do change; from this we may find, as I believe, that these are the indices of changes in the imprint itself. In short, the imprint is an ensemble of reactions, not just the chemical.

Whatever external stimuli are affecting the carrying mother are also affecting her baby. He is not behaving on his genetic legacy so much as his epigenetic inheritance, his life experience. We must understand that we need to be careful about ingesting any foreign substance from alcohol to tranquilizers, while pregnant. And we therefore need to be aware that womb-life effects are impactful and enduring.

Because they endure and continuously stimulate the system there is hope; that we can attack the basic imprint and reverse it. It is not heredity that is irreversible, but epigenetics which is reversible, something we have been doing for almost 50 years. If it has been life experience that has caused changes in the biochemistry and neuronal circuitry it can be altered. It is not a fixed entity. The way this is done is searching out and reliving key imprints. The changes in vital signs are part of the imprint so that when we reverse the by-products (lower blood pressure) it tells us of its effect on the imprint.