CAS PS 241 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Advanced Maternal Age, Otto Rank, Prenatal Care
14 Dec 2017
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January 31st, 2017
Developmental Psychology — Lecture 3
Fetal period
There is some contact with the outside world during the fetal period. In fact, there is sensory
input from the outside.
What can fetuses sense about the outside
-sense of Mother’s motion (from 5th mont)
-some vision (by 6 moths), a fetus will respond to light that comes from the outside of the belly
(like with a flashlight)
-there is response to sound by 4 months. The fetus can hear the mother’s voice; in fact, a
fetus will prefer their mother’s voice other than outside voices and noises. Sounds levels for a
fetus are like those from riding a car.
-by seven months, fetuses can dream while sleeping
Is fetal learning possible?
DeCasper and Spence did an experiment: 16 pregnant women read aloud the Cat in The Hat
twice a day in the last 1.5 months of pregnancy.
2-3 days after birth, babies’ baseline pacifies sucking rates were taken. Then, the equipment
was set up so that changes in sucking rate turned a recording of their mother reading the Cat in
The Hat either on or off.
Eight of the babies had to decrease their sucking to turn on the recording of the Cat in The Hat.
Eight of the babies had to increase their sucking to turn on the recording.
The babies, based on this exposure, changed their sucking rate in order to listen to the story of
the cat in the hat.
Preference for language is being established in the uterus. Language learning comes from this
and starts in the utero. Also, babies prefer the language that they have heard most when they
were fetuses.
Fetal learning is establishing groundwork for future learning.
What other factors besides genetics influence prenatal development?
-nutrition, having access to poor nutrition is linked to underweight baby and later learning
development
-Teratogens: environmental agents that can cause birth defects (illegal and legal dugs,
nicotine, alcohol, infections). Flu has turned out to be a big issue.
-Parent psychological condition and mother’s attitudes. Extreme situations of stress affect the
fetus and have longer term effects. The maternal stress play a lot in the role of birth.
-“immigrant paradox” — initially called the Hispanic affect. What they found was that when you
look at people immigrating to the US from Hispanic countries, when marched to people of
Latin descent who have lived in the US for a longer period of time, the immigrant families had
healthier babies. Why? Because the immigrant families have more support from relatives
(grandparents especially) — social support is a huge factor to stress levels of pregnant
women
-Maternal stress: associations between childhood stress and early menarche/teenage
pregnancy that has implication for prenatal development too. Early teenage pregnancy: less
stress.
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-Parental age: mothers over the age of 35 (advanced maternal age) or 40(highly advanced
maternal age)
-more difficulty conceiving
-more likely to miscarry
-more likely to have birth complications (maternal age contributes risk independent of
factors such as increased hypertension, diabetes risk).
-More risk of genetic disorder, such as down syndrome (over the age of 49, it is 1 in 11).
-Fathers over the age of 35 or over 40
-Men have more gradual rather than abrupt change in potential to produce healthy offspring
than women
-associated with increased risk of miscarriage
-rare genetic disorders (for example, severe bone malformations, heart defects), maybe
schizophrenia (?)
Birth
What does it feel like being born?
-very stressful. In fact, Otto Rank (1929) theorized the “primal trauma” as a cause of later
anxiety (not true). The stress is going to get you into highly alertness. You already have an
alert individual who is looking around and crying. This is important for attachment: baby is
looking for carers.
-Absorption of liquid from lungs
-increase blood to vital organs
-alertness promoting attachment. If the mother is not able to have access as the baby is born,
the baby will be cared for by other people (there are no longtime repercussions in humans, in
some mammals there are).
-Babies born through C-section have trouble breathing because of the stress that they didn't
have to go through during normal birth.
Labor’s stages:
1. Uterus contracts until cervix (top of the birth canal) is fully dilated. Contractions 15-20
minutes apart becoming more frequent. 6-12 hours usually of contractions.
2. Contractions 1 minute apart. Baby pushed headfirst through cervix. Mothers bears down
and baby emerges. This stage is really quick, minutes to an hour maximum
3. Baby has emerged and uterus contracts. Placenta and other fetal membranes separate from
uterus — delivered as afterbirth. You want to all this stuff to come out because it may create
some infections (you can take it out surgically). In the third stage, the baby is already born.
One hormone heavily implicated in birth universally: oxytocin, the hormone of love.
It helps to stimulate contractions and it dilates the cervix. Women produce this hormone when
they have sex.
It also moves the baby and the placenta out of the body. It limits bleeding at site of placenta. It
leads to release of milk during breastfeeding (stimulated by the sucking of the baby).
Oxytocin leads to sense of intense calm post-birth and, as stress reducing hormone, sets stage
for bonding because it generally increases tending and affiliative behavior.
In general, the presence of this hormone sets a general stage for females response to stress:
-tend to befriend.
-In times of stress, females release oxytocin and tend to offspring.
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