Womb-life and Serotonin Output: The Origin for Later Mental Illness
What I shall be discussing is our life in the womb and how it affects
the rest of our lives. Animal research sheds more light on all this. Let’s
begin with the mouse and her womb-life. It is only after several
months of gestation that the fetus produces adequate amounts of
inhibitory/repressive chemicals such as serotonin. A mouse fetus does
not make its own serotonin until close to the third trimester. It seems
like the mother supplies what is needed until the baby can take over.
But when the mother is low on supplies, she cannot fulfill what the
developing baby lacks.
Now if we extrapolate a bit to human mothers … but first a caveat:
It seems to me that the principles or laws of biology apply pretty much
across many species, so that what is true in the physiologic evolution
of mice might also be true in our own biologic evolution, as well, and
as the following discussion indicates, it is true; the lag between the
ability to experience pain and the ability to repress it can be
considerable.
Whereas the beginning of serotonin production in mice is sometime
in the third trimester, in humans it seems to begin slightly earlier.
Research on a fetus seems to indicate that I t can experience pain after
thirteen weeks from conception but that it really fully experiences
pain after 20-24 weeks of gestation—about five months of life in utero.
It is fully sensitive to adverse events at this time (Ranalli, 2000).
What is critical here is there is a time during gestation when the
fetus cannot produce repressive/inhibitory chemicals and must “ask”
for help physiologically from his mother. When the fetus does begin
manufacturing its own neurochemicals it sends some of it to the
mother. It says, “I can soothe myself now. Thanks for the help.” Above
all, serotonin is a soother. Its function is to bolster the gating function
so that pain does not slip across synapses in order to tell higher levels
about its predicament. It enhances the unconscious; that is its job. It is
merciful; that is, something in our brains has mercy and does its best
to keep us out of pain. It is therefore a big part of our humanity.
Although the pain-killing aspects of serotonin are well known, less
is known about its role in affecting appetite, gastric symptoms and
heart function. In short, it has a role in normal development and
150 Journal of Prenatal and Perinatal Psychology and Health
evolution. In particular, new evidence points to its role in actually
shaping some brain structures early in fetal life (Côté et al., 2007).
Traumas very early on, before the secretion of serotonin is evident
in the fetus, impact later serotonin output and can change who and
what we are significantly. One reason we see serious mental illness
arising during adolescence is that the hormonal turmoil going on and
the weakening of defenses permits some of the fetal pain to rise and
affect thought processes—hence: delusions and hallucinations.
Interestingly, in its early secretory life, serotonin functions to
control and shape anatomic structure. When levels drop over time, we
may expect changes in our body structure. Later on, it carries on as a
pain controller. It too evolves and changes. Thus, we as humans may
have a significant delay in secreting serotonin during gestation. And
we rely on our mother to pitch in before we start making our own. She
needs to have an adequate supply for both herself and her baby. If she
is chronically depressed she is apt to have low levels of serotonin, used
up in the fight against her pain. In this way, the mother cannot fulfill
the fetal needs for a way to blunt the impact of adverse events (i.e., of
pain). Thus, the fetus has developed a residue of unblocked, freefloating
pain and terror early in his gestation. This makes him much
more vulnerable to trauma at birth and in infancy. He has defective
coping mechanisms. Any later trauma can have double the impact on
the relatively undefended system.
The low serotonin output is an imprint that remains pretty much
the same throughout our life, making us not up the task of everyday
living. That is why we so desperately need serotonin enhancing
medication later in life (Prozac, Zoloft). The medication is helping to
block pain that may have happened before we set foot on this planet,
and to bring the levels up to normal readings.
We know from current research that an imprint during gestation
remains pristinely pure for all of our lives, whereas an imprint after
birth can produce compensating secretions that blunt the impact of
trauma during infancy. My very notion of the imprint means pre-birth
events may create irreversible dislocations of function in the
neurobiologic systems. The only way it can change is if we return to the
origin of the dislocation and right the ship. It needs a push from below
not a cry (an effort) from above.
It seems to be another biologic law that whatever happens during
gestation can alter basic physiologic set points, which is rarely the case
after birth when there can be compensatory mechanisms to make up
for the dislocation of function associated with the original trauma.
So we have a developing fetus who has no effective repressive
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mechanisms trying to borrow some of mother’s serotonin to help out,
but to no avail. A completely naïve physical system has no frame of
reference that tells it that basic physiologic processes are deviated.
During gestation the system deviates and then considers that
deviation as normal. So the baby is born with an inadequate
serotonin/gating capacity and that deficiency follows him throughout
life. But it is an already wounded organism, a wound that almost no
one can see or even imagine. He will grow up chronically anxious,
unable to concentrate or focus. He may well be ADD/ADHD and be
unable to sit still because the activation goes on incessantly. It shows
itself in the panic attacks that happen when the system is vulnerable
and gating weak; the imprint from gestation rises to the top and
shouts out its message, which almost no one can decipher. It is such a
mystery because its origins are so arcane.
An example: A girl is born in wartime to a mother who is
chronically anxious because her husband has been sent to fight,
leaving her all alone. The anxious mother transmits some of that
emotion to her baby who is then considerably weakened. She cannot
fully repress to hold down pain. By the time infancy happens there is
already a weak, vulnerable baby who is chronically agitated. This may
be the beginning of serious mental illness. It is not obvious to the
human eye, but the damage is done.
Too often this is ascribed to heredity because no one can imagine
what has already happened in the womb. It is kind of a free-floating
anxiety that seems to have no specific time of origin. Remember, this
is a purely physiologic reaction which originated at a time when there
was no higher brain center to process the event. To recapture it we
must retreat to that primitive brain.
What we may see many decades later are panic and anxiety
attacks, and then much later a cerebral stroke. This imprint would
militate against cancer because for some cancers to develop, we often
need massive repression; and for that we need massive secretions of
“neurojuices” such as serotonin.
What would exacerbate the risk of cancer are events later in
infancy and childhood with unloving, stern parents. The result is a
person who never had outlets for his pain. We have seen several
epileptics who had that familial configuration. What further shuts
down the person is growing up with a violent father or mother, or a
strict religious household, with no one to turn to. The force of the
imprint may well affect the brain when the person is in his sixties.
How on earth can we access such remote experiences, back to a time
when there were no ideas to help out?
I looked around and found this article and only copied this part...I firmly believe in what the mama feels whether it is fright, happiness or excitement and that "SOME" of these experiences will affect the unborn baby/babies whether it be human or dog or mouse...
when we worry, reactions take place in our bodies and sometimes we develop ulcers because of the worrying...anger creates other reactions...a mama dog gets excited when she strikes a hot track and then she bays that hog or catches it not to mention the taste of that hog blood, or that smell in her nostrils that gets inhaled and some of those particles are transferred into the lungs where the blood picks up some of these particles and some of those reactions increase certain hormones and those hormones get elevated in that puppy... and that puppy reacts to certain stimuli when in training because of the imprinting in the womb...all these or chemical reactions and the puppies placenta is tied in to the mamas blood so that is where the pup gets its nutrients to live among other things that we or anyone for that matter does not understand or even know what reactions are actually happening due to what...just another theory of mine...
a while back we were having a party for our grandson and other kids were invited...one kid about 4 years old was eating our birds eye peppers I was told...of course I said no way and they brought the kid in to me...he said he did eat a handful and I said do not swallow any more peppers and he said he liked them and that he munched down on them...he went back out and came back in and put about seven or 8 red and green peppers in his mouth and chewed them up like he was eating a piece of chicken...long story short his mother was craving jalapenos throughout her pregnancy and she had never eaten them before...she said he asked for his first pepper at 2 years of age...coincidence???maybe
