Addressing Prenatal Stress

Addressing Prenatal Stress: We’ll delve into the intricate realm of prenatal stress, unraveling its impact on embryonic, fetal, and newborn development, and exploring strategies for support and intervention. More specifically, we’ll study the following themes:

Understanding Prenatal Stress: Insights into the concept of prenatal stress and its profound effects on the development of the embryo, fetus, and newborn, examining the biological, psychological, and environmental factors at play.

Exploring Stress Factors Across Stages: Utilizing, among others, frameworks such as Whole-Self Prebirth Psychology and Prebirth Analysis Matrix (PAM) to dissect the specific maternal, paternal, societal, and environmental stressors experienced at each stage from ovulation to weaning, integrating updated evidence and research findings.

Strategies for Stress Release: Equipping individuals and communities with practical strategies for stress relief during the prenatal and perinatal periods, including mindfulness techniques, relaxation exercises, and social support networks, fostering resilience and well-being.

Community Implementation:

Culturally Sensitive Support Guidelines: Developing guidelines for delivering culturally sensitive and respectful support to community groups that are more vulnerable to prenatal and perinatal stress, acknowledging diverse traditions, beliefs, and practices, and tailoring interventions accordingly.

Awareness Campaigns and Community Support: Launching community-wide awareness campaigns aimed at raising awareness about the prevalence and impact of prenatal and perinatal stress, and promoting available support services and resources, fostering a culture of care and support for expectant parents and families.

PLEASE STUDY AGAIN OUR CLASS ON DISCUSSING VARIOUS TYPES OF TRAUMA. THE COLLECTION OF PAPERS IS QUITE COMPLETE AND SHOULD ALSO BE TAKEN INTO ACCOUNT. THANK YOU.

On Prenatal Stress_1
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On Prenatal Stress en 2

Στρες στην Προ/Περιγεννητική Περίοδο ελ 1

In my beginning is my end. (T. S. Eliot, Four Quartets)

If you were given a newborn infant with all his or her extraordinary potential, and were directed to turn that infant into a school shooter in 15 years, or a mainlining addict in 20, how would you do that? In spite of distaste for the question, obviously at some level we know how to do that. A more general and less disturbing question is how do we get to be who we are as human beings – and as patients? That general question has been with us since ancient times. Gods and fate were our explanation throughout most of history. Th e answer has been refi ned in relatively recent times, actually coextensive with the quite recent time line of the germ theory, first by poets and then by psychoanalysts, who helped us to see how human development is powerfully influenced by emotionally traumatic early life experiences. More recently still, epidemiologists and neurobiologists have led the explorations.
Traumatic events of the earliest years of infancy and childhood are not lost but, like a child’s footprints in wet cement, are oft en preserved lifelong. Time does not heal the wounds that occur in those earliest years; time conceals them. Th ey are not lost; they are embodied. Only in recent decades has the magnitude of the problem of developmentally damaged humans begun to be recognized and understood. The limits of that understanding, and the resistance to it, are captured well in this book’s title, Th e Hidden Epidemic . There is in those words the obvious implication of something causing a serious and widespread threat to health and well-being, but they also offer a paradox, subtly leading us to wonder why an epidemic would be hidden, and how? … (Cambridge University Press 978-0-521-88026-8 – The Impact of Early Life Trauma on Health and Disease: The Hidden Epidemic Edited by Ruth A. Lanius, Eric Vermetten and Clare Pain)

The Abstract that follows offers an excellent introduction to the Prenatal Stress. Please read. 
Early life stress in humans (i.e. maltreatment, violence exposure, loss of a loved one) and in rodents (i.e. disrupted attachment or nesting, electric shock, restraint, predator odor) occurs during critical steps of neural circuit formation. ELS in humans is associated with increased risk for developmental psychopathology, including anxious and depressive phenotypes. The biological mechanisms underlying these potentially persistent maladaptive changes involve long-term epigenetic modifications, which have been suggested to be potentially transmissible to subsequent generations. DNA methylation is an epigenetic mechanism that modifies gene expression patterns in response to environmental challenges and influences mutation rates. It remains to be seen whether a functionally relevant fraction of DNA methylation marks can escape genome-wide erasures that occur in primordial germ cells and after fertilization within the zygote. Early life-stress-triggered changes in epigenetic mediated transmission of acquired behavioral traits among humans have been assessed mainly by targeting genes involved in the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, such as NR3C1 and FKBP5. Recently, researchers examining epigenetic transmission have begun to apply genome-wide approaches. In humans, reduced representation bisulfite sequencing (RRBS) was performed on peripheral samples that were obtained from individuals who were prenatally exposed to the “Dutch Hunger Winter”, resulting in two Differentially Methylated Regions (DMRs) in INSR and CPTIA genes that were functionally, biologically and technically validated, and significantly associated with birth weights and LDL cholesterol levels in offspring. In rodents, non-genomic intergenerational transmission of anxiety which was associated with differentially methylated enhancers that were putatively involved in lipid signaling and synaptic/neurotransmission in hippocampal granule cells, was discovered also using RRBS. Finally, transgenerational transmission of altered behaviors was associated with sperm-derived microRNAs produced by ELS male mice. The field of epigenetic transmission is just beginning to enter the epigenomic era by using genome-wide analyses. Such approaches remain of strong interest to human studies, first in order to help to assess the relevance of the previous targeted studies, and second to discover new important epigenetic modifications of potential clinical importance. New discoveries may help to assess how transmittable the negative impact of stress may be to offspring. The latter may open doors for future treatments and resilience-promoting interventions, as well as new approaches to treat the effects of childhood trauma before the onset of psychiatric disorder. Citation: Stenz , Ludwig,Schechter , S. Daniel,Serpa , Rusconi Sandra,Paoloni-Giacobino , Ariane,Intergenerational Transmission of DNA Methylation Signatures Associated with Early Life Stress,Current Genomics, volume 19, issue 8, pages 665-675, year 2018, issn 1389-2029/1875-5488, doi 10.2174/1389202919666171229145656, (http://www.eurekaselect.com/article/87631

It is becoming increasingly evident that maternal exposure to adversity during pregnancy leads to life-long effects in offspring. While there appears to be some commonality in the effects of maternal stress on endocrine and behavioral outcomes in the first generation offspring, it is clear that effects are highly dependent on species, sex and age, as well as on the time in pregnancy when stress is experienced. Recent studies have identified that the effects of maternal stress are not confined to the first generation and that they can extend over multiple generations. These effects are also evident in humans. While our understanding of the potential mechanisms by which transgenerational programming of the stress response occurs remain largely undetermined, recent studies have begun to identify potential mechanisms of transfer. These include modified maternal adaptations to pregnancy, altered maternal behavior and transgenerational epigenetic programming. Such transgenerational programming of stress responses and pathologies has important societal consequences as it could provide a biological explanation for the generational persistence of human behaviors in populations exposed to adversity. (citation: Stephen G. Matthews, David I. Phillips, Transgenerational inheritance of stress pathology, Experimental Neurology, Volume 233, Issue 1, 2012, Pages 95-101, ISSN 0014-4886, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.expneurol.2011.01.009. (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0014488611000239)

Read the following publication which summarises very well the research concerning prenatal stress.

Mbiydzenyuy NE, Hemmings SMJ, Qulu L. Prenatal maternal stress and offspring aggressive behavior: Intergenerational and transgenerational inheritance. Front Behav Neurosci. 2022 Sep 23;16:977416. doi: 10.3389/fnbeh.2022.977416. PMID: 36212196; PMCID: PMC9539686.

The Metaphors We Live By (book) by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson

Philipp Mitteroecker, Barbara Fischer, Evolution of the human birth canal, American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Volume 230, Issue 3, Supplement, 2024, Pages S841-S855, ISSN 0002-9378, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ajog.2022.09.010.

Fragione, Giacomo & Loeb, Abraham. (2023). Neutron Star Kicks and Implications for Their Rotation at Birth. The Astrophysical Journal. 958. 130. 10.3847/1538-4357/ad083b.

Reflect on the concepts of contraction, spiralling, rotation, spinning

On Contraction
” … a period of slow contraction is a “supersmoothing” cosmological phase that homogenizes, isotropizes and flattens the universe both classically and quantum mechanically…” William G. Cook, Iryna A. Glushchenko, Anna Ijjas, Frans Pretorius, Paul J. Steinhardt, Supersmoothing through slow contraction, Physics Letters B, Volume 808, 2020, 135690, ISSN 0370-2693, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physletb.2020.135690.

Below you find the abstract of the thesis on the concept of contraction in Bruno’s philosophy that follows in detail. You may find it very interesting.

Abstract

The first part of this thesis describes the concept of contraction, in its ontological and noetic interpretations, as it is used in the philosophy of Giordano Bruno (1548-1600). Bruno denied the efficacy of the several psychical, psychological and medical states traditionally thought to aid contemplation and noetic ascent. The only means in his view was philosophical contemplation. Philosophical contemplation elevated the mind from the fragmented multiplicity of sense impressions to an understanding of the principles governing the sensible world. He denied that the human mind could attain ecstasy and transcend the plurality of the Mind or World Soul in the senses in which he understood those terms. Noetic ascent followed in reverse order the ontological descent from the intelligible to the sensible realm. The multiplicity of the intelligible and sensible universe occurred by virtue of the contraction of the infinite, universal, substance. The two principles of the universe, form and matter, were ‘contracted’ to produce sensible multiplicity. Matter was individuated or contracted through form, and form through matter. In this ontological sense of the term, ‘contraction’ is an integral part of Bruno’s principle of individuation. In Bruno’s philosophy, contraction in the noetic interpretation denotes a concatenating function of the human mind. The objects of this concatenation are concepts and intentions, which are likenesses of the sensible world as perceived via the senses or summoned by memory. In both instances intentionality is important. One of the most important methods of noetic ascent was memory. Bruno’s memory theory derives largely from Plotinus (ca. 205-270) and the interpretation of Plotinus given by Marsilio Ficino (1433-1499). His account of contraction in relation to memory reflects these sources. The second part of this thesis discusses the sources for Bruno’s ideas of contraction. Frances Yates, Alfonso Ingegno and other scholars have suggested various sources for Bruno’s concept of contraction as a method of noetic ascent, notably, in relation to physiological contractions of humours and spiritus. This interpretation does not, however, take into account Bruno’s reservations towards noetic ascent facilitated through medical contractions, and it ignores his insistence on defining contraction in the noetic interpretation in parallel with the ontological interpretation of the term. More persuasive is the argument proposed by Franz Clemens, Sandro Mancini and Filippo Mignini, who propose that Bruno derived his concept of contraction, in its ontological sense, from Nicholas of Cusa (1401-1464). Contraction was an important concept in Cusanus’ philosophy and theology. Bruno certainly knew the works, notably the De docta ignorantia, in which Cusanus uses ‘contraction’. But this interpretation ignores the possibility that Bruno and Cusanus might have drawn on common sources, namely, medieval scholastic commentaries on the Liber de causis. One probable common source is Giles of Rome, also called Aegidio Romano or Aegidio Colonna (ca. 1243-1316). Several features of Bruno’s discussion of ‘contraction’ suggest strongly that he drew on these medieval sources, in particular Giles. Bruno adapted the interpretations of contraction that he found in Cusanus and these medieval commentaries to the needs of his unorthodox philosophy.

Two major definitions of “spiral” in the American Heritage Dictionary are:

1. a curve on a plane that winds around a fixed center point at a continuously increasing or decreasing distance from the point.
2. a three-dimensional curve that turns around an axis at a constant or continuously varying distance while moving parallel to the axis; a helix.

It denotes  both a centripetal and a centrifugal motion and that posits a geometric center either inside or outside a structure. Spirals have remarkable mathematical properties, linking together the seemingly diverse concepts of the Fibonacci Sequence, the Golden Ratio, and the number phi (φ).

“the essence of the point consists in motion… it’s motion is most perfect in its nature…   it must necessarily resemble a circular figure…  the motion above described must be the perpetually circular… must proceed from the centre to the periphery, and from the periphery to the center… it must necessarily be of a spiral figure…”    Principia Part I, Ch. 2, Sec. 20 and 21)

The lexeme Spirale (spiral) serves as an important symbol and figure of thought in Goethe’s oeuvre that cuts across numerous discourses and disciplines, ranging from aesthetics and art history to mineralogy and geology, from botany and cosmology to anthropology and sexuality. Early on in Goethe’s life it plays a rather marginal role in his thought; yet by the year of his death in 1832, it becomes a pivotal, if contradictory, figure imbued with scientific, literary, and even metaphysical significance. Associated with such archetypal polarities as systole/diastole, male/female, and life/death, the spiral ultimately emerges in Goethe’s conceptual lexicon as a type of motion within opposing force fields whose ever greater intensification also suspends them, thereby inhibiting a higher synthesis or conceptual resolution. In brief, Goethe’s concept of the spiral works to overstep boundaries, transgress binaries, and resist stasis and closure. (Goethe’s Lexicon)

On rotation:
Rotation describes the circular motion of an object around its center. A rotation is a type of transformation that takes each point in a figure and rotates it a certain number of degrees around a given point.

The special case of a rotation with an internal axis passing through the body’s own center of mass is known as a spin (or autorotation). In that case, the surface intersection of the internal spin axis can be called a pole; for example, Earth’s rotation defines the geographical poles. A rotation around an axis completely external to the moving body is called a revolution (or orbit), e.g. Earth’s orbit around the Sun. The ends of the external axis of revolution can be called the orbital poles.

Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information? (T. S. Eliot)