A Glimpse Into My Area of Specialty.... Brain Development: A Difficult Birth As The First Symptom Of

"When there is no more food for the young in the egg ad it has nothing on which to live it makes violent movements, searches for food, and breaks the membranes. In just the same way, when the child has grown big and the mother cannot continue to provide him with enough nourishment, he becomes agitated, breaks through the membranes, and incontinently passes into the external world, free from any bonds."-- Hippocrates

In one third of cases, brain disorders that manifest themselves as a child develops are wrongly ascribed to a difficult birth. In fact, the brain defects that cause such conditions as learning disabilities and spasticity often come into being long before birth. The English surgeon William John Little is credited as the first person to identify spastic diplegia (a form of cerebral palsy), having described the condition in 47 children in 1862. His conviction that is was caused by birth trauma is still held by many to this day. Strangely enough, little attention has been paid to the opposing view held by Sigmund Freud, who after a careful study in 1897, concluded that a difficult birth couldn't cause spasticity but that both the neurological condition and the difficult birth should be seen as the consequence of a developmental disorder of the fetal brain. Problems at birth are often also blamed in the case of children with learning disabilities.

Prader-Willi syndrome is a genetic disorder that causes morbid obesity over the course of time. Many children with this syndrome have a difficult birth and go on to have learning disabilities. These aren't caused by birth related problems but by the genetic abnormality that was present from conception. In only 6% of children born at due date with spasticity and a mere 1% of children with learning disabilities can the disorder be attributed to the lack of oxygen at birth. The vast majority of children with these conditions experience problems long before birth, as is evident from their slow growth and lack of movement in the womb. Spasticity has many different causes, ranging from genetic abnormalities and intrauterine infections to exposure to chemicals, iodine deficiency, and long term oxygen deficiency in the womb. Conversely, it's striking that serious brain damage often does not result when a normal fetus is suddenly deprived of oxygen at birth.

The relationship between a difficult labor and impaired brain function is usually the opposite of what is generally assumed. A difficult labor or premature or delayed labor tends to be the consequence of a problem in fetal brain development. And that deficiency can in turn be caused by genetic factors, lack of oxygen in the womb, infections, or exposure to medication, or addictive substances ingested by the mother, like morphine, cocaine or nicotine. So efforts to establish the cause or premature or difficult birth are incomplete without examining the child's brain.

That a child's brain plays a very active role in labor is something that was established 35 years ago in a study with the gynecologist, W.J. Honnebier. Births of 150 anencephalic infants were observed (children born with most of their brain missing). Babies with this condition are usually born extremely prematurely or very overdue, and labor proceeds much more slowly than normal. That birth takes twice as long (and the birth of the placenta three times as long) is due to the absence of oxytocin in the child's brain. Half of these babies don't survive, which shows how important a well-functioning fetal brain is to the process of labor.

Another hormone secreted by the fetal brain, vasopressin, ensures that blood is mainly directed to those organs that are crucial to survival during birth, like the heart, the adrenal gland, the pituitary gland, and the brain. This involves depriving less vital areas like the intestines. Animal studies have revealed the many complex chemical steps that are necessary for the birth process. But it all starts when a child's brain registers that the maternal food supply is becoming inadequate, causing it to give the signal for the onset of labor.

The importance in understanding the development of our brain and some of the studies that have been done in relevance to it is absolutely intriguing. As a future doctor, coach and practitioner, I hope to serve you in as many ways possible in order to help you understand how amazing the process of development is, how amazing the functions of the body are and most importantly, how we are our brains.