Michel Odent - Childbirth and the Future of Homo Sapiens

In the 1980s there were already theoretical reasons to claim that the way we are born might have long-term consequences., a database specializing in studies exploring correlations between what happens during the primal period (including birth) and what happens later on.

The results of a Chinese study published in 2010 are particularly intriguing. The objective was to evaluate the likelihood of psychopathological problems in childhood in relation to how babies are born. of caesarean sections was 56%. Three groups of children were assessed. Children in the first group were born by the vaginal route without forceps (or ventouse). Those in the second group were born with forceps (or ventouse). Those in the third group were born by programmed pre-labour c-section on maternal request. Children in the third group, born by pre-labour c-section, had the lowest risk of psychopathological problems. After controlling for many associated factors, the differences remained highly significant. One of my own interpretations is that, in the context of modern China, almost all children had probably been exposed to synthetic oxytocin, except those born by pre-labour c-section.

Several studies of autism from a primal health research perspective have a great scientific value. For example, there has been a study involving every Swedish baby born over a period of twenty years. Interestingly, whatever the country and whatever the research protocols, all these studies have detected risk factors for autism during the period surrounding birth. This fact is crucial to the hypothesis that autism and anorexia nervosa are two facets of the same disease, one variant being mostly male and the other mostly female.

A great variety of studies of asthma and allergic diseases also provide concordant results in terms of timing for gene-environment interaction.

We must emphasise that the prevalence of all the pathological conditions we have mentioned in this short anthology has dramatically increased in recent decades. This is also the case with many so-called auto-immune diseases, when a dysregulated immune system identifies some parts of the body as foreign and attacks them. A typical example is type-1 diabetes, in which antibodies destroy the pancreas. This kind of diabetes, often diagnosed early in life, is fatal when insulin treatment is not available. An accumulation of data suggests that the period surrounding birth is crucial in its genesis.

In general, it is difficult to obtain valuable studies about behavioural problems that are at the frontier between personality traits and pathological conditions. This is why thought-provoking studies about juvenile criminality, need to be replicated in order to moderate the possible effects of a great variety of confounding factors.

All those interested in the future of humanity, whatever their background, need to be aware of this new generation of research. We must, however, deliver a warning for those who are not familiar with statistical language. Epidemiologists provide conclusions in terms of tendencies, risk factors and statistically significant differences. They need huge numbers to make their studies valuable, but they cannot say anything about individuals and particular cases. This is why readers of this book must try to forget their own family and friends. One of the functions of the Primal Health Research Database is to introduce the necessary collective dimension. Our topic is the future of humanity.