Life Before Birth: The Challenges of Fetal Development

Who decides the right time to be born? Is it the mother who tires of carrying her baby, or the fetus  who tells their mother they are  ready to be born? How and when do fetal activities such as the heartbeat, brainwaves, limb movements, and sleep states develop? How do fetuses prepare for an independent life after birth in a world so different from their life in the womb? What stimulates  that first miraculous cry  that tells the world, “I am here”?  Do fetuses have a 24-hour-clock to distinguish day and night? Can fetuses  hear their mother’s heartbeat and recognize her voice? Why are fetal lungs filled with fluid and how do the fetal lungs  replace that fluid with air at  birth? The fetus gets oxygen across the placenta.  So, why does the fetus make breathing movements for the whole of the second half of pregnancy when no air is entering their lungs? How do maternal and paternal factors present in the womb change fetal  gene activity, altering life-course health and even how we age?


In Life Before Birth Peter Nathanielsz guides us through easily followed, exciting stories on the science of our miraculous and mysterious journey from conception to birth.  Nathanielsz  and his colleague Thomas McDonald were the first to show that the signal that starts the birth process releases a specific hormone from a small set of nerve cells deep within the fetal brain.  He was also the first to show that the uterine muscle rhythmically hugs the baby, changing their sleep state, body movements, brain  and hormone function. The first edition of Life Before Birth was published in fourteen languages. Now at last we have the second edition. Peter Nathanielsz  has received multiple awards: he is an Emeritus Professor at Cornell University, a Fulbright Fellow, a Fellow of the Royal College  of Obstetricians and a recipient of a  Lifetime Achievement award of the Society of Reproductive investigation. He  has taught at Cambridge University in England, Cornell University, NYU School of Medicine and the Universities of Texas, Wyoming and London. He has published 600 papers in major scientific journals.  For more information see www.lifecoursehealthpress.com.