TEDGlobal 2011
Annie Murphy Paul: What we learn before we're born
Filmed:
Readability: 5
2,517,731 views
Pop quiz: When does learning begin? Answer: Before we are born. Science writer Annie Murphy Paul talks through new research that shows how much we learn in the womb -- from the lilt of our native language to our soon-to-be-favorite foods.
Annie Murphy Paul - Science author
Annie Murphy Paul investigates how life in the womb shapes who we become. Full bio
Annie Murphy Paul investigates how life in the womb shapes who we become. Full bio
Double-click the English transcript below to play the video.
00:15
My subject today is learning.
0
0
3000
00:18
And in that spirit, I want to spring on you all a pop quiz.
1
3000
3000
00:21
Ready?
2
6000
2000
00:23
When does learning begin?
3
8000
3000
00:26
Now as you ponder that question,
4
11000
2000
00:28
maybe you're thinking about the first day of preschool
5
13000
2000
00:30
or kindergarten,
6
15000
2000
00:32
the first time that kids are in a classroom with a teacher.
7
17000
3000
00:35
Or maybe you've called to mind the toddler phase
8
20000
3000
00:38
when children are learning how to walk and talk
9
23000
3000
00:41
and use a fork.
10
26000
2000
00:43
Maybe you've encountered the Zero-to-Three movement,
11
28000
3000
00:46
which asserts that the most important years for learning
12
31000
3000
00:49
are the earliest ones.
13
34000
2000
00:51
And so your answer to my question would be:
14
36000
3000
00:54
Learning begins at birth.
15
39000
2000
00:56
Well today I want to present to you
16
41000
2000
00:58
an idea that may be surprising
17
43000
3000
01:01
and may even seem implausible,
18
46000
3000
01:04
but which is supported by the latest evidence
19
49000
2000
01:06
from psychology and biology.
20
51000
3000
01:09
And that is that some of the most important learning we ever do
21
54000
3000
01:12
happens before we're born,
22
57000
2000
01:14
while we're still in the womb.
23
59000
3000
01:17
Now I'm a science reporter.
24
62000
2000
01:19
I write books and magazine articles.
25
64000
2000
01:21
And I'm also a mother.
26
66000
2000
01:23
And those two roles came together for me
27
68000
3000
01:26
in a book that I wrote called "Origins."
28
71000
3000
01:29
"Origins" is a report from the front lines
29
74000
3000
01:32
of an exciting new field
30
77000
2000
01:34
called fetal origins.
31
79000
2000
01:36
Fetal origins is a scientific discipline
32
81000
3000
01:39
that emerged just about two decades ago,
33
84000
3000
01:42
and it's based on the theory
34
87000
3000
01:45
that our health and well-being throughout our lives
35
90000
3000
01:48
is crucially affected
36
93000
2000
01:50
by the nine months we spend in the womb.
37
95000
3000
01:53
Now this theory was of more than just intellectual interest to me.
38
98000
4000
01:57
I was myself pregnant
39
102000
2000
01:59
while I was doing the research for the book.
40
104000
3000
02:02
And one of the most fascinating insights
41
107000
2000
02:04
I took from this work
42
109000
2000
02:06
is that we're all learning about the world
43
111000
3000
02:09
even before we enter it.
44
114000
3000
02:12
When we hold our babies for the first time,
45
117000
2000
02:14
we might imagine that they're clean slates,
46
119000
3000
02:17
unmarked by life,
47
122000
2000
02:19
when in fact, they've already been shaped by us
48
124000
3000
02:22
and by the particular world we live in.
49
127000
4000
02:26
Today I want to share with you some of the amazing things
50
131000
2000
02:28
that scientists are discovering
51
133000
2000
02:30
about what fetuses learn
52
135000
2000
02:32
while they're still in their mothers' bellies.
53
137000
3000
02:36
First of all,
54
141000
2000
02:38
they learn the sound of their mothers' voices.
55
143000
3000
02:41
Because sounds from the outside world
56
146000
3000
02:44
have to travel through the mother's abdominal tissue
57
149000
3000
02:47
and through the amniotic fluid that surrounds the fetus,
58
152000
4000
02:51
the voices fetuses hear,
59
156000
2000
02:53
starting around the fourth month of gestation,
60
158000
3000
02:56
are muted and muffled.
61
161000
2000
02:58
One researcher says
62
163000
2000
03:00
that they probably sound a lot like the the voice of Charlie Brown's teacher
63
165000
3000
03:03
in the old "Peanuts" cartoon.
64
168000
3000
03:06
But the pregnant woman's own voice
65
171000
3000
03:09
reverberates through her body,
66
174000
2000
03:11
reaching the fetus much more readily.
67
176000
3000
03:14
And because the fetus is with her all the time,
68
179000
3000
03:17
it hears her voice a lot.
69
182000
3000
03:20
Once the baby's born, it recognizes her voice
70
185000
3000
03:23
and it prefers listening to her voice
71
188000
2000
03:25
over anyone else's.
72
190000
2000
03:27
How can we know this?
73
192000
2000
03:29
Newborn babies can't do much,
74
194000
2000
03:31
but one thing they're really good at is sucking.
75
196000
3000
03:34
Researchers take advantage of this fact
76
199000
3000
03:37
by rigging up two rubber nipples,
77
202000
3000
03:40
so that if a baby sucks on one,
78
205000
2000
03:42
it hears a recording of its mother's voice
79
207000
2000
03:44
on a pair of headphones,
80
209000
2000
03:46
and if it sucks on the other nipple,
81
211000
2000
03:48
it hears a recording of a female stranger's voice.
82
213000
4000
03:52
Babies quickly show their preference
83
217000
3000
03:55
by choosing the first one.
84
220000
3000
03:58
Scientists also take advantage of the fact
85
223000
3000
04:01
that babies will slow down their sucking
86
226000
2000
04:03
when something interests them
87
228000
2000
04:05
and resume their fast sucking
88
230000
2000
04:07
when they get bored.
89
232000
3000
04:10
This is how researchers discovered
90
235000
2000
04:12
that, after women repeatedly read aloud
91
237000
3000
04:15
a section of Dr. Seuss' "The Cat in the Hat" while they were pregnant,
92
240000
4000
04:19
their newborn babies recognized that passage
93
244000
3000
04:22
when they hear it outside the womb.
94
247000
3000
04:25
My favorite experiment of this kind
95
250000
3000
04:28
is the one that showed that the babies
96
253000
2000
04:30
of women who watched a certain soap opera
97
255000
2000
04:32
every day during pregnancy
98
257000
3000
04:35
recognized the theme song of that show
99
260000
3000
04:38
once they were born.
100
263000
3000
04:41
So fetuses are even learning
101
266000
2000
04:43
about the particular language that's spoken
102
268000
3000
04:46
in the world that they'll be born into.
103
271000
2000
04:48
A study published last year
104
273000
3000
04:51
found that from birth, from the moment of birth,
105
276000
3000
04:54
babies cry in the accent
106
279000
2000
04:56
of their mother's native language.
107
281000
3000
04:59
French babies cry on a rising note
108
284000
3000
05:02
while German babies end on a falling note,
109
287000
3000
05:05
imitating the melodic contours
110
290000
2000
05:07
of those languages.
111
292000
2000
05:09
Now why would this kind of fetal learning
112
294000
2000
05:11
be useful?
113
296000
2000
05:13
It may have evolved to aid the baby's survival.
114
298000
3000
05:16
From the moment of birth,
115
301000
2000
05:18
the baby responds most to the voice
116
303000
2000
05:20
of the person who is most likely to care for it --
117
305000
2000
05:22
its mother.
118
307000
2000
05:24
It even makes its cries
119
309000
2000
05:26
sound like the mother's language,
120
311000
2000
05:28
which may further endear the baby to the mother,
121
313000
3000
05:31
and which may give the baby a head start
122
316000
2000
05:33
in the critical task
123
318000
2000
05:35
of learning how to understand and speak
124
320000
3000
05:38
its native language.
125
323000
2000
05:40
But it's not just sounds
126
325000
2000
05:42
that fetuses are learning about in utero.
127
327000
2000
05:44
It's also tastes and smells.
128
329000
3000
05:47
By seven months of gestation,
129
332000
2000
05:49
the fetus' taste buds are fully developed,
130
334000
2000
05:51
and its olfactory receptors, which allow it to smell,
131
336000
3000
05:54
are functioning.
132
339000
2000
05:56
The flavors of the food a pregnant woman eats
133
341000
3000
05:59
find their way into the amniotic fluid,
134
344000
2000
06:01
which is continuously swallowed
135
346000
2000
06:03
by the fetus.
136
348000
2000
06:05
Babies seem to remember and prefer these tastes
137
350000
3000
06:08
once they're out in the world.
138
353000
3000
06:11
In one experiment, a group of pregnant women
139
356000
3000
06:14
was asked to drink a lot of carrot juice
140
359000
2000
06:16
during their third trimester of pregnancy,
141
361000
3000
06:19
while another group of pregnant women
142
364000
2000
06:21
drank only water.
143
366000
2000
06:23
Six months later, the women's infants
144
368000
3000
06:26
were offered cereal mixed with carrot juice,
145
371000
3000
06:29
and their facial expressions were observed while they ate it.
146
374000
4000
06:33
The offspring of the carrot juice drinking women
147
378000
2000
06:35
ate more carrot-flavored cereal,
148
380000
2000
06:37
and from the looks of it,
149
382000
2000
06:39
they seemed to enjoy it more.
150
384000
2000
06:41
A sort of French version of this experiment
151
386000
3000
06:44
was carried out in Dijon, France
152
389000
2000
06:46
where researchers found
153
391000
2000
06:48
that mothers who consumed food and drink
154
393000
3000
06:51
flavored with licorice-flavored anise during pregnancy
155
396000
5000
06:56
showed a preference for anise
156
401000
2000
06:58
on their first day of life,
157
403000
2000
07:00
and again, when they were tested later,
158
405000
2000
07:02
on their fourth day of life.
159
407000
2000
07:04
Babies whose mothers did not eat anise during pregnancy
160
409000
4000
07:08
showed a reaction that translated roughly as "yuck."
161
413000
4000
07:12
What this means
162
417000
2000
07:14
is that fetuses are effectively being taught by their mothers
163
419000
2000
07:16
about what is safe and good to eat.
164
421000
3000
07:19
Fetuses are also being taught
165
424000
2000
07:21
about the particular culture that they'll be joining
166
426000
3000
07:24
through one of culture's most powerful expressions,
167
429000
3000
07:27
which is food.
168
432000
2000
07:29
They're being introduced to the characteristic flavors and spices
169
434000
3000
07:32
of their culture's cuisine
170
437000
2000
07:34
even before birth.
171
439000
3000
07:37
Now it turns out that fetuses are learning even bigger lessons.
172
442000
3000
07:40
But before I get to that,
173
445000
2000
07:42
I want to address something that you may be wondering about.
174
447000
4000
07:46
The notion of fetal learning
175
451000
2000
07:48
may conjure up for you attempts to enrich the fetus --
176
453000
3000
07:51
like playing Mozart through headphones
177
456000
2000
07:53
placed on a pregnant belly.
178
458000
2000
07:55
But actually, the nine-month-long process
179
460000
3000
07:58
of molding and shaping that goes on in the womb
180
463000
3000
08:01
is a lot more visceral and consequential than that.
181
466000
4000
08:05
Much of what a pregnant woman encounters in her daily life --
182
470000
4000
08:09
the air she breathes,
183
474000
2000
08:11
the food and drink she consumes,
184
476000
2000
08:13
the chemicals she's exposed to,
185
478000
2000
08:15
even the emotions she feels --
186
480000
2000
08:17
are shared in some fashion with her fetus.
187
482000
3000
08:20
They make up a mix of influences
188
485000
3000
08:23
as individual and idiosyncratic
189
488000
2000
08:25
as the woman herself.
190
490000
2000
08:27
The fetus incorporates these offerings
191
492000
2000
08:29
into its own body,
192
494000
2000
08:31
makes them part of its flesh and blood.
193
496000
3000
08:34
And often it does something more.
194
499000
2000
08:36
It treats these maternal contributions
195
501000
3000
08:39
as information,
196
504000
2000
08:41
as what I like to call biological postcards
197
506000
2000
08:43
from the world outside.
198
508000
3000
08:46
So what a fetus is learning about in utero
199
511000
3000
08:49
is not Mozart's "Magic Flute"
200
514000
2000
08:51
but answers to questions much more critical to its survival.
201
516000
4000
08:55
Will it be born into a world of abundance
202
520000
2000
08:57
or scarcity?
203
522000
2000
08:59
Will it be safe and protected,
204
524000
3000
09:02
or will it face constant dangers and threats?
205
527000
3000
09:05
Will it live a long, fruitful life
206
530000
2000
09:07
or a short, harried one?
207
532000
3000
09:10
The pregnant woman's diet and stress level in particular
208
535000
3000
09:13
provide important clues to prevailing conditions
209
538000
3000
09:16
like a finger lifted to the wind.
210
541000
3000
09:19
The resulting tuning and tweaking
211
544000
2000
09:21
of a fetus' brain and other organs
212
546000
3000
09:24
are part of what give us humans
213
549000
2000
09:26
our enormous flexibility,
214
551000
2000
09:28
our ability to thrive
215
553000
2000
09:30
in a huge variety of environments,
216
555000
2000
09:32
from the country to the city,
217
557000
2000
09:34
from the tundra to the desert.
218
559000
3000
09:37
To conclude, I want to tell you two stories
219
562000
2000
09:39
about how mothers teach their children about the world
220
564000
3000
09:42
even before they're born.
221
567000
3000
09:46
In the autumn of 1944,
222
571000
2000
09:48
the darkest days of World War II,
223
573000
3000
09:51
German troops blockaded Western Holland,
224
576000
3000
09:54
turning away all shipments of food.
225
579000
3000
09:57
The opening of the Nazi's siege
226
582000
2000
09:59
was followed by one of the harshest winters in decades --
227
584000
3000
10:02
so cold the water in the canals froze solid.
228
587000
4000
10:06
Soon food became scarce,
229
591000
2000
10:08
with many Dutch surviving on just 500 calories a day --
230
593000
4000
10:12
a quarter of what they consumed before the war.
231
597000
3000
10:15
As weeks of deprivation stretched into months,
232
600000
3000
10:18
some resorted to eating tulip bulbs.
233
603000
3000
10:21
By the beginning of May,
234
606000
2000
10:23
the nation's carefully rationed food reserve
235
608000
2000
10:25
was completely exhausted.
236
610000
2000
10:27
The specter of mass starvation loomed.
237
612000
3000
10:30
And then on May 5th, 1945,
238
615000
3000
10:33
the siege came to a sudden end
239
618000
2000
10:35
when Holland was liberated
240
620000
2000
10:37
by the Allies.
241
622000
2000
10:39
The "Hunger Winter," as it came to be known,
242
624000
3000
10:42
killed some 10,000 people
243
627000
2000
10:44
and weakened thousands more.
244
629000
2000
10:46
But there was another population that was affected --
245
631000
3000
10:49
the 40,000 fetuses
246
634000
2000
10:51
in utero during the siege.
247
636000
3000
10:54
Some of the effects of malnutrition during pregnancy
248
639000
2000
10:56
were immediately apparent
249
641000
2000
10:58
in higher rates of stillbirths,
250
643000
2000
11:00
birth defects, low birth weights
251
645000
2000
11:02
and infant mortality.
252
647000
2000
11:04
But others wouldn't be discovered for many years.
253
649000
3000
11:07
Decades after the "Hunger Winter,"
254
652000
2000
11:09
researchers documented
255
654000
2000
11:11
that people whose mothers were pregnant during the siege
256
656000
4000
11:15
have more obesity, more diabetes
257
660000
2000
11:17
and more heart disease in later life
258
662000
3000
11:20
than individuals who were gestated under normal conditions.
259
665000
3000
11:23
These individuals' prenatal experience of starvation
260
668000
4000
11:27
seems to have changed their bodies
261
672000
2000
11:29
in myriad ways.
262
674000
2000
11:31
They have higher blood pressure,
263
676000
2000
11:33
poorer cholesterol profiles
264
678000
2000
11:35
and reduced glucose tolerance --
265
680000
2000
11:37
a precursor of diabetes.
266
682000
3000
11:40
Why would undernutrition in the womb
267
685000
2000
11:42
result in disease later?
268
687000
2000
11:44
One explanation
269
689000
2000
11:46
is that fetuses are making the best of a bad situation.
270
691000
3000
11:49
When food is scarce,
271
694000
2000
11:51
they divert nutrients towards the really critical organ, the brain,
272
696000
3000
11:54
and away from other organs
273
699000
2000
11:56
like the heart and liver.
274
701000
2000
11:58
This keeps the fetus alive in the short-term,
275
703000
3000
12:01
but the bill comes due later on in life
276
706000
3000
12:04
when those other organs, deprived early on,
277
709000
2000
12:06
become more susceptible to disease.
278
711000
3000
12:09
But that may not be all that's going on.
279
714000
3000
12:12
It seems that fetuses are taking cues
280
717000
2000
12:14
from the intrauterine environment
281
719000
3000
12:17
and tailoring their physiology accordingly.
282
722000
2000
12:19
They're preparing themselves
283
724000
2000
12:21
for the kind of world they will encounter
284
726000
2000
12:23
on the other side of the womb.
285
728000
2000
12:25
The fetus adjusts its metabolism
286
730000
2000
12:27
and other physiological processes
287
732000
3000
12:30
in anticipation of the environment that awaits it.
288
735000
3000
12:33
And the basis of the fetus' prediction
289
738000
3000
12:36
is what its mother eats.
290
741000
2000
12:38
The meals a pregnant woman consumes
291
743000
2000
12:40
constitute a kind of story,
292
745000
2000
12:42
a fairy tale of abundance
293
747000
2000
12:44
or a grim chronicle of deprivation.
294
749000
3000
12:47
This story imparts information
295
752000
3000
12:50
that the fetus uses
296
755000
2000
12:52
to organize its body and its systems --
297
757000
2000
12:54
an adaptation to prevailing circumstances
298
759000
3000
12:57
that facilitates its future survival.
299
762000
3000
13:00
Faced with severely limited resources,
300
765000
3000
13:03
a smaller-sized child with reduced energy requirements
301
768000
3000
13:06
will, in fact, have a better chance
302
771000
2000
13:08
of living to adulthood.
303
773000
2000
13:10
The real trouble comes
304
775000
2000
13:12
when pregnant women are, in a sense, unreliable narrators,
305
777000
3000
13:15
when fetuses are led
306
780000
2000
13:17
to expect a world of scarcity
307
782000
2000
13:19
and are born instead into a world of plenty.
308
784000
3000
13:22
This is what happened to the children of the Dutch "Hunger Winter."
309
787000
3000
13:25
And their higher rates of obesity,
310
790000
2000
13:27
diabetes and heart disease
311
792000
2000
13:29
are the result.
312
794000
2000
13:31
Bodies that were built to hang onto every calorie
313
796000
3000
13:34
found themselves swimming in the superfluous calories
314
799000
2000
13:36
of the post-war Western diet.
315
801000
3000
13:39
The world they had learned about while in utero
316
804000
3000
13:42
was not the same
317
807000
2000
13:44
as the world into which they were born.
318
809000
3000
13:47
Here's another story.
319
812000
2000
13:49
At 8:46 a.m. on September 11th, 2001,
320
814000
4000
13:53
there were tens of thousands of people
321
818000
2000
13:55
in the vicinity of the World Trade Center
322
820000
2000
13:57
in New York --
323
822000
2000
13:59
commuters spilling off trains,
324
824000
2000
14:01
waitresses setting tables for the morning rush,
325
826000
3000
14:04
brokers already working the phones on Wall Street.
326
829000
4000
14:08
1,700 of these people were pregnant women.
327
833000
3000
14:11
When the planes struck and the towers collapsed,
328
836000
3000
14:14
many of these women experienced the same horrors
329
839000
3000
14:17
inflicted on other survivors of the disaster --
330
842000
3000
14:20
the overwhelming chaos and confusion,
331
845000
2000
14:22
the rolling clouds
332
847000
2000
14:24
of potentially toxic dust and debris,
333
849000
4000
14:28
the heart-pounding fear for their lives.
334
853000
2000
14:30
About a year after 9/11,
335
855000
2000
14:32
researchers examined a group of women
336
857000
3000
14:35
who were pregnant
337
860000
2000
14:37
when they were exposed to the World Trade Center attack.
338
862000
2000
14:39
In the babies of those women
339
864000
2000
14:41
who developed post-traumatic stress syndrome, or PTSD,
340
866000
3000
14:44
following their ordeal,
341
869000
2000
14:46
researchers discovered a biological marker
342
871000
3000
14:49
of susceptibility to PTSD --
343
874000
2000
14:51
an effect that was most pronounced
344
876000
3000
14:54
in infants whose mothers experienced the catastrophe
345
879000
3000
14:57
in their third trimester.
346
882000
2000
14:59
In other words,
347
884000
2000
15:01
the mothers with post-traumatic stress syndrome
348
886000
3000
15:04
had passed on a vulnerability to the condition
349
889000
3000
15:07
to their children while they were still in utero.
350
892000
3000
15:10
Now consider this:
351
895000
2000
15:12
post-traumatic stress syndrome
352
897000
2000
15:14
appears to be a reaction to stress gone very wrong,
353
899000
3000
15:17
causing its victims tremendous unnecessary suffering.
354
902000
4000
15:21
But there's another way of thinking about PTSD.
355
906000
3000
15:24
What looks like pathology to us
356
909000
3000
15:27
may actually be a useful adaptation
357
912000
2000
15:29
in some circumstances.
358
914000
2000
15:31
In a particularly dangerous environment,
359
916000
3000
15:34
the characteristic manifestations of PTSD --
360
919000
3000
15:37
a hyper-awareness of one's surroundings,
361
922000
3000
15:40
a quick-trigger response to danger --
362
925000
3000
15:43
could save someone's life.
363
928000
3000
15:46
The notion that the prenatal transmission of PTSD risk is adaptive
364
931000
4000
15:50
is still speculative,
365
935000
2000
15:52
but I find it rather poignant.
366
937000
3000
15:55
It would mean that, even before birth,
367
940000
2000
15:57
mothers are warning their children
368
942000
2000
15:59
that it's a wild world out there,
369
944000
2000
16:01
telling them, "Be careful."
370
946000
3000
16:04
Let me be clear.
371
949000
2000
16:06
Fetal origins research is not about blaming women
372
951000
3000
16:09
for what happens during pregnancy.
373
954000
2000
16:11
It's about discovering how best to promote
374
956000
3000
16:14
the health and well-being of the next generation.
375
959000
3000
16:17
That important effort must include a focus
376
962000
2000
16:19
on what fetuses learn
377
964000
2000
16:21
during the nine months they spend in the womb.
378
966000
3000
16:24
Learning is one of life's most essential activities,
379
969000
3000
16:27
and it begins much earlier
380
972000
2000
16:29
than we ever imagined.
381
974000
2000
16:31
Thank you.
382
976000
2000
16:33
(Applause)
383
978000
7000
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Annie Murphy Paul - Science authorAnnie Murphy Paul investigates how life in the womb shapes who we become.
Why you should listen
To what extent the conditions we encounter before birth influence our individual characteristics? It‘s the question at the center of fetal origins, a relatively new field of research that measures how the effects of influences outside the womb during pregnancy can shape the physical, mental and even emotional well-being of the developing baby for the rest of its life.
Science writer Annie Murphy Paul calls it a gray zone between nature and nurture in her book Origins, a history and study of this emerging field structured around a personal narrative -- Paul was pregnant with her second child at the time. What she finds suggests a far more dynamic nature between mother and fetus than typically acknowledged, and opens up the possibility that the time before birth is as crucial to human development as early childhood.
Annie Murphy Paul | Speaker | TED.com