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As the mother moves, what happens to the baby in the womb?

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Does it have any way of knowing what is occurring outside?

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New discoveries have brought an entirely new focus to the study of life before birth.

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Scientists now believe that the unborn child can actually hear, feel and see.

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Is it possible that it can even think?

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This series presents information based in part on theory and conjecture.

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The producer's purpose is to suggest some possible explanations, but not necessarily the only ones to the mysteries we will examine.

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There are a few moments in the human experience as magical as the instant of birth.

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What influences has this baby encountered in nine months? How aware was he of his surroundings?

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Will he remember his birth and life before birth?

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In nine months, the unborn has traveled an enormous distance from a single fertilized cell to a complete individual.

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From the moment of fertilization, these minute cells will transform themselves into a human fetus.

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Two hundred million cells will eventually comprise this new person.

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A tiny heart beats strongly after only four weeks.

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Deep in the womb and about the size of an adult thumb, a delicate cartilage skeleton begins to take shape at five weeks.

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While the physical growth of the fetus is astounding, a great deal of controversy still exists as to when human life actually begins.

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The fetus is physically complete after twelve weeks. Barely three inches long, it can move its head, squint, frown and stretch its arms and legs.

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Between three and six months, the fetus grows to eight inches inside these cramped quarters.

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Its fingernails can scratch its skin and gender is obvious.

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At eighteen weeks, when the bones are solid and the muscles strong, the baby can punch and kick its mother.

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Already the unborn wants to suck its thumb.

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Soft hair grows in the last three months. The senses develop, eyes open and close, and it can hear and perhaps understand the mother's world.

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Everything that affects a pregnant woman influences her growing fetus.

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Dr. Kenneth L. Jones, director of the Birth Defects Clinic at the University of California, San Diego, describes the danger of drugs on the fetus during its most vulnerable period of growth.

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It would appear that the first trimester of pregnancy, the first three months of the pregnancy, is the most critical time as far as the fetus is concerned, as far as most drugs and chemicals are concerned.

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The reason for that is that that is the period when the organs are developing in the developing fetus and embryo.

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By the end of the first trimester, by the end of the third month of gestation, the baby is completely formed. All the organs are formed.

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And after that, it really just is a process of growth and more development of the fetus. But all the organs are really formed by the time the fetus is three months old.

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So that time, that first three months of the pregnancy, is most critical as far as most drugs and chemicals are concerned.

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Despite these warnings, the average woman takes about 14 different drugs during pregnancy, although it is unclear what effect many of these chemicals have on the developing baby.

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These children were tragically deformed by the tranquilizer thalidomide, taken by many pregnant women in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

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There are other more commonplace agents that might harm the fetus.

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Drinking and smoking are a normal part of life. Now it is known that even in minimal amounts, smoking and drinking may have a detrimental effect upon the fetus throughout pregnancy.

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We were asked to see a group of children, all of whom were born to chronically alcoholic women.

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And we found that the eight children that we saw all had some very characteristic features which made them very similar.

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They were all very small at the time of birth, which is to say they failed to thrive inside their mother, presumably because that high alcohol content that she was drinking was getting through her bloodstream across the baby's placenta and into the baby's bloodstream.

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And it was affecting the growth of the baby in utero.

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Babies born to women who smoke during their pregnancy are smaller at the time of birth than babies born to women who don't smoke during pregnancy.

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And obviously they are.

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Dr. Thomas Verney, author of The Secret Life of the Unborn Child.

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Now, for a long time we have known, of course, that there is physiological communication between the unborn child and the mother.

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We know that everything that the mother eats and drinks, alcohol, smoking, all these things, the nicotine, go right through the placental barrier.

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One researcher did an interesting study which went a little bit further than just what the mother eats.

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He asked several of the mothers who were habitual smokers to only think of having a cigarette.

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Just consider for a moment that you're going to light up.

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The moment that mothers just thought of having a cigarette, their unborn children immediately reacted to their thoughts as if they, in fact, were smoking up.

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Now, there is no physiological explanation for this.

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We know of no neurochemicals that are produced in a person when they just think of having a cigarette.

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So something else is going on here.

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The fetus may be more aware of its surroundings than previously understood.

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At Cedars-Sinai Hospital, Dr. Calvin Hobel, director of obstetrics and gynecology, comments.

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There are indications and studies which suggest that the fetus can interpret its mother's feelings and how the mother feels about its fetus.

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If a mother is stressed and concerned about her pregnancy and she can release hormones which influence the environment of the fetus,

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and I think that the fetus is in a position where it can interpret that type of information which can have an effect on the fetus and its development.

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New methods of monitoring the health and development of the fetus may relieve the usual anxieties that accompany pregnancy.

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Carol Jackson, one of Dr. Hobel's patients, is now in her fourth month and has decided to have a sonogram to be sure that her baby is healthy.

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On a television screen, she can see her baby move and actually count its fingers and toes.

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A sonogram uses the principle of sound waves, much like sonar is used in the Navy to search for submarines in the ocean.

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Sound waves of this magnitude are very safe and do not harm the fetus.

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Because Carol is 38 and has a family history of problem pregnancies, her doctor has also recommended amniotic testing.

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A hollow needle is carefully inserted through the abdomen into the amniotic sac that surrounds and protects the fetus.

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In this fluid are cells that are exfoliated from the fetus into the amniotic fluid and by taking a sample of the fluid and then in tissue culture in the laboratory we can grow these cells and we can study their genetic components.

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Using this test we can then identify that fetus which has abnormal chromosomes.

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The test results indicate no down syndrome. Given a normal pregnancy, she will give birth to a healthy baby girl.

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Carol might wonder if her baby locked in the womb is aware and can feel.

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The fetus seems insulated from outside thoughts and feelings. However, new studies indicate that the unborn is capable of thought, emotion and memory.

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A lift, again keeping the knees over the toes, and bring them back.

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There are a number of influences upon the baby that would surprise many pregnant women.

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Jane Fonda's work out is one of many health centers recognizing the benefits of well-planned exercise during pregnancy.

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Recent testing indicates that the baby, particularly during the later months in the womb, is very much aware of its mother's activities.

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Recently it has been shown that by the age of six months you can do electron cephalograms which have brain waves studies of the unborn child.

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From these you can see that some of the time the unborn child is asleep and some of the time he is awake.

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Furthermore, during the time that he is asleep it can be shown that he has ram sleep which is rapid eye movement sleep.

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Rapid eye movement sleep almost always connotes in adults dreaming.

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There is no reason to suppose that the same would not apply to the unborn child.

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So that what we have here in terms of the hard scientific data is proof positive that at least the neurological substrate is there and which memory can build.

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Which really is the absolute foundation. Without that I could not say that a child is an aware, sensing, feeling human being as I am saying.

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If the unborn baby has a memory what kind of events could it recall?

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Dr. David Chamberlain of the Anxiety Treatment Center in San Diego has tried to find out.

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Through hypnosis Linda Nickerson retraces her pre-birth experiences.

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I am in my mother but we are in the house.

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You are in your mother but we are in the house.

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Yeah.

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What part of the house are you in?

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By the door. The front door.

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By the front door? What is happening there?

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My mom is laughing and we are going somewhere.

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She is laughing?

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And you are going somewhere?

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Is it just you and your mother together?

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No.

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I think she is going somewhere with my father.

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So the three of you are going off somewhere?

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Uh huh.

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How is it for you when your mother laughs?

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It's nice.

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It's like...

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I can't explain it. It's just nice.

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It's nice.

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It makes me feel like a warm fuzzy or something. A little ball of warmth.

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Uh huh.

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I would be alright with you to remember something unpleasant that happened in the womb.

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Alright, when I touch your forehead, that memory will come to you.

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Something very unpleasant that happened while you were inside.

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Where are you now?

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In the bedroom.

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My mother is crying.

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And she is really upset.

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Everything seems dark.

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Everything seems dark.

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It feels...

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She keeps shaking and it makes me shake.

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And I keep wanting it to stop, but it won't.

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Alright, why don't you come forward now?

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And this time when I touch your forehead, let it be the time that you are actually being born.

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Be there now.

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The doctor is putting his hands on my temples.

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And I don't want him to do that because I want to do it by myself.

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Now he's pulling me out.

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And I feel kind of...

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Scared.

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Scared?

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Well...

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It feels real different.

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It's kind of cold.

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Cold?

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Yeah, because I'm all wet.

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And then the doctor brings me over and he lays me on my mother's stomach.

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Lays you on your mother's stomach?

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Mm-hmm.

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How is that?

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It's nice.

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Adele Miller, Linda's mother, is surprised by the accuracy of her daughter's recollections.

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When I think back about the birth when she was born, I thought of it as an experience that I had.

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And now I find out it's an experience we both had.

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It's one we both shared.

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You have to appreciate the fact that in the normal operation and economy of the mind,

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we're always storing things, we're always filing away old experiences.

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And we're always finding things that are not the same.

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We're always storing things.

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We're always filing away old experiences.

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This is simply the way we're built.

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We don't have immediate memory of everything that ever happened to us.

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We file it away.

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Naturally, things that happened long, long ago,

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are kind of filed away the deepest.

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And it takes a little more work to get back to them.

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They are there.

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They are somehow recorded by the mind and held.

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And you have to go to a bit of effort to get at that.

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But hypnosis is the very best means that I know of for uncovering that material.

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But it's not the only means.

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Some people remember their birth without any help at all.

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An opposing view is voiced by Dr. Elizabeth Loftus,

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psychologist at the University of Washington, Seattle, and author of Memory.

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There is a widespread belief that everything we ever experienced is stored in the mind.

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And even if we can't get at it, potentially we could,

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if we could hypnotize a person or if we could electrically stimulate their brain in some way.

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But I have examined the evidence for this proposition,

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and I find there is absolutely no good evidence for the idea that everything we ever experienced is stored in the mind.

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In fact, it seems more likely to me that some of our memories undergo transformations or alterations or distortions

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because of suggestions that come in later and that original memories are no longer there.

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There is a lot of evidence that babies, even in utero, are able to understand what's going on,

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whether they happen to understand that language or not. Somehow they get the message.

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To many, the difficulty and pain of childbirth is as traumatic for the baby as it is for the mother.

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Natural childbirth, to some, is one of the means of making the first breath of life more gentle.

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This class teaches the father to assist the mother during labor and delivery.

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Pelvic rocking is real important for pregnancy because there is so much stress in the lower back.

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This helps to bring the baby up out of the pelvis.

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After much consideration, Kim and Bob Haley have allowed in search of to film this most extraordinary event,

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the birth of their first child.

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Sally Berman, trained nurse midwife, assists at their side.

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Bob coaches Kim throughout the entire birth.

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The Bradley method of natural childbirth employs unusual procedures, including standing and squatting,

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to oxygenate the baby and move it into position.

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Dr. Misha Askren will deliver the baby.

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Emergency equipment is concealed, preserving the home-like feeling.

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What you're about to see is an actual natural birth using no drugs.

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The baby is an adult.

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The baby is a baby.

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The baby is a child.

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And the baby is a baby.

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The baby is a child.

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After ten hours of labor, a healthy baby boy, Morgan, is born.

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is born. We have not solved all the mysteries of life before birth and the

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debate as to when life begins continues. But for the first time we know the

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dimension of feeling and perhaps memory that's passed from mother to child.

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Kim Haley. During the whole pregnancy and through the whole nine months

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everything you're doing is for this little baby and giving them the chance

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to start out the right way. It was just the I'm sure the most choice moments

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that I'll have in my life.

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When does life before birth really begin?

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Dr. Jeffrey Fielin, a family practitioner and spokesman for the

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Right to Life organization, comments. My view and that view of contemporary

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biology on when life begins is that life begins with fertilization. When the

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sperm and the egg come together from that point on the human being is

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genetically complete. Everything that makes up a human being, the hair color,

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the eye color, that type of fingerprints is determined at that time at the time

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of fertilization. Dr. Hugh Anwill, director of the Los Angeles chapter of

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Planned Parenthood. We haven't really defined when human life begins. Does it

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begin in the coming together of the sperm and the egg? Is it something that is

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there when birth takes place? My own view is that it's somewhere in the later

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stages of the pregnancy. The issue is extremely sensitive and volatile. The

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Supreme Court has declared the mother now holds the right to terminate her

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pregnancy in many cases up to 24 weeks. The court however did not address itself

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directly to the question of when does life begin? Meanwhile the controversy

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continues. I think the important thing really in the final analysis to remember

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is that the unborn child certainly from the six months on is sensing, feeling

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aware human being and capable of laying down memory tracks. Consequently he or

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she will really have to be treated with much more love, much more caring, much

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more respect than it has been our practice in the past.

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you