Prelabour Intrauterine
Life - Main Sources of Information
There is an accumulation of recent hard data leading to the conclusion
that our health is to a great extent shaped in the womb. Such
data are compiled in the Primal Health Research Data Bank (www.birthworks.org/primalhealth).
This database contains hundreds of references and abstracts of
studies published in authoritative medical or scientific journals.
All of them belong to the new framework of ‘Primal Health
Research’: they explore correlations between what happens
during the ‘primal period’ and what will happen later
on in life in terms of health and behaviour. The primal period
includes fetal life, the period surrounding birth and the year
following birth. (For definitions of ‘Primal period’
and ‘Primal Health Research’, sea Michel Odent. Primal
Heath. Century-Hutchinson 1986; 2nd ed.2002). It is not easy to
detect such studies because they do not fit into the current classifications.
This is the main reason for the database.
An overview of the database reveals the importance
of one particular sub-group of studies. These are studies detecting
correlations between a state of health in adulthood, adolescence,
or childhood, and what happened when the mother was pregnant.
There have been such studies in all fields of medicine and health
sciences. Specialization can make us ignore the importance of
the whole phenomenon. The practical implications of a new understanding
of the concept of health are enormous. In terms of public health,
it appears today that nothing is more important than the health
and wellbeing of pregnant women. In terms of research nothing
is more important than to study the factors influencing fetal
growth and fetal development.
