Image from Amazon.com

I just finished reading the book Origins: How the Nine Months Before Birth Shape the Rest of Our Lives, which is a pretty accurate title.  A lot of the book was stuff we already know; don’t drink while pregnant, don’t do drugs while pregnant, eat healthy, and so on.  What was interesting was how big of an impact your actions for nine months would have on the remainder of your child’s life.  Statistically being obess during pregnancy not only causes problems for your child as an infant but results in your child battling weight their entire life.  Statistically a child with a low birth weight will have heart complications at birth, but they are also more likely to have health concerns as adults.

The book really makes you think about those nine months.  The average pregnant woman is taking 4 different medications while pregnant.  The scary part is that we really don’t know how those medications will affect our offspring.  In the 70′s (I believe) women who had had miscarriages were given a specific medicine to help them sucessfully give birth.  Unfortunately that medication had an affect on their daughters.  But no one knew the affect until the daughters were teenagers and were having to have hysterectomies.  That’s scary!!!!!

The oddest fact from the book was that gay men are more likely to have an older biological brother.  Regardless if they were raised with this brother or raised with older step-brothers, the key was biological, which goes back to pregnancy.

I also found it interesting that what we eat can greatly affect what our child will eat.  The more diverse our taste, the more diverse our child’s taste will be.

If you are thinking about getting pregnant it is a great read, it gives you a whole new perspective on how important your actions are for those nine months.