Chapter 3: Prenatal Development, Teratogens, Maternal Factors, Parenthood Flashcards
Motivations for Parenthood:
Why Have Children?
- Giving/Gaining affection
- Fun
- Being accepted as a mature & responsible adult
- Building a legacy
- Sense of accomplishment as children grow
- Having someone to take care of you in old age*
- So kids can be contributing members of the household
Why NOT Have Children?
- Loss of freedom
- Financial strain
- Family/Work conflict
- Interference with mother’s employment opportunities
- Risks of raising children in any given environment
- Reduced time with partner
- Loss of privacy
- Fear of failure
The stigma of not wanting children**
Is there a Best Time during Adulthood to Have a Child?
Negative side of waiting to have children:
• Fertility declines for women & men as they age.
• Ability to care for a child with enthusiasm & energy declines with age.
Positive side of waiting to have children:
• Resources for caring with a child increase with age.
• Parents can establish themselves at work if they wait to have children.
Prenatal Development:
Conception
Read page 96 for review!!!!
Prenatal Development:
Period of the Zygote (weeks 1-2)
The first cell duplication takes 30 hours, but by the 4th day, 60-70 cells exist!
Between the 7th and 9th days, implantation occurs, and the blastocyst starts to grow.
It forms a membrane called the Amnion that encloses the organism in the amniotic fluid.
This happens within the first 2 weeks. As many as 30% of zygote’s do not survive this period.
The placenta & umbilical cord help to bring nutrients to the zygote.
Prenatal Development:
Period of the Embryo
Implantation to the 8th week of pregnancy.
Most of the 1st Trimester.
Last half of the 1st month:
• Ectoderm (nervous system, skin)
• Mesoderm (muscles, skeleton, circulatory system, other internal organs)
• Endoderm (digestive system, lungs, urinary tract, glands)
• Neural tube forms
Second month:
• Eyes, ears, nose, jaw, and neck form
• Intestines grow, heart develops chambers, liver and spleen take over production of blood cells
Prenatal Development:
Period of the Fetus
9th week to end of pregnancy
Third Month of 1st Trimester:
• Organs, muscles, and nervous system start to become organized and connected
• Fetus starts moving up to 25 times per hour
• Sex can be determined by ultrasound at 12 weeks
2nd Trimester:
• Between 17-20 weeks, the mother could start to feel movements
• Up to 22 weeks, the fetus still couldn’t survive outside of the mother
• Brain growth allows the fetus to be stimulated or irritated by sounds
• And…let the marketing begin!
3rd Trimester:
• Age of viability: Between 22-26 weeks the baby can survive outside of the womb with much medical assistance
• The brain keeps developing (cerebral cortex)
• The fetus keeps growing!
• Greater responsiveness to
external stimulation
• Acquire taste & odor preferences
• By the end, personality begins to develop, and movement subsides
True or False?
Most babies are born healthy and most hazards can e avoided.
TRUE!
True or False?
There are very few prenatal factors that can harm a developing person.
FALSE!
True or False?
Prenatal exposures to a dangerous substance is only harmful in the first trimester of pregnancy.
FALSE!
Is the prenatal environment that important??
YES!
There are many factors that can negatively impact the developing person.
Teratogen
refers to any environmental agent that causes damage during the prenatal period, birth defects, or death.
What are some factors that would influence prenatal development?
Drugs Alcohol Cigarettes Diseases Poor nutrition Stressors Chemicals
Almost anything can impact a developing fetus
Teratogens:
Important factors
- Dose
- Heredity
- Other Negative Influences
- Prenatal Age
Teratogens:
Prescription & Nonprescription Drugs
Thalidomide (sedative)
• Damage to ears, heart, kidneys, and genitals
• Below avg intelligence
Diethylstilbestrol (DES)
• Vaginal cancer, malformed uterus, infertility
Isotretinoin (taken for severe acne) can also cause severe birth defects
Aspirin causes major birth defects even in small doses
Caffeine in excess can cause damage to the prenatal child
Teratogens:
Illegal Drugs
Cocaine, heroin, and methadone:
Can cause low birth weight, physical defects, breathing difficulties, and death around the time of birth.
Prenatal & Postnatal neonatal abstinence syndrome:
Associated with alcohol, morphine/opiates, antidepressants, Benzodiazepine.
Lifelong challenges are associated with illegal drug use while pregnant
Marijuana:
attention, memory, academic achievement difficulties
Teratogens:
Tobacco
11% of women smoke during pregnancy
More cigarettes leads to greater likelihood of child experiencing
prematurity, impaired heart rate & breathing during sleep, infant death, and asthmas & cancer in later childhood.
Deciding to stop smoking at any time will increase the child’s likelihood of a healthy life.
The harmful agent in cigarettes in nicotine.
The hazards of smoking are not just to the smoker. Beware of second hand smoke, too.
Teratogens:
Alcohol
Fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS)
Partial fetal alcohol syndrome (p- FAS)
Alcohol-related neurodevelopmental disorder (ARND)
More alcohol = more problems for young children
Alcohol interferes with production and migration of neurons in the primitive neural tube (brain size decreases, damage to brain structures, abnormalities in brain functioning)
Body uses lots of oxygen to metabolize alcohol, which takes oxygen away from a developing fetus.
Intergenerational transmission
Teratogens
Radiation
Exposure to radiation can cause DNA mutation
Unfortunately, for most of the examples in the book, the mothers who were exposed to radiation didn’t know it was happening or couldn’t escape it (e.g. Hiroshima or Chernobyl)
For most expectant mothers, it’s a good precaution to avoid x- rays whenever possible
Teratogens:
Environmental Pollution
Mercury –> brain damage, physical deformities, mental
retardation, brain damage, etc.
Lead –> prematurity, low birth weight, brain damage, physical defects.
Can be found in old flaking paint or industrial materials
Teratogens:
Infectious Disease
Viruses:
n Rubella (worst b/t wks 3-8)àorgan damage
Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) which leads to AIDS:
• Mothers pass the virus 20-30% of the time
• Most babies born with AIDS will not live past their 1st birthday, and 90% won’t make it to their 3rd birthday
• ZDV can reduce the chance of transmission by up to 95%
Bacterial & Parasitic Diseases.
• Toxoplasmosis: from undercooked food or contact with infected cats/mice
Prenatal Environmental Influences:
Maternal Exercise
Walking, swimming, biking, or an aerobic exercise is good!
It is associated with increased birth weight, reduced risk for complications.
Too much exercise is not good (more than 30 minutes a day/5 days a week)
Third trimester makes exercise difficult
Exercise, overall, can ease the symptoms of pregnancy (back pain, difficulty breathing)
Always let your doctor know what you’re doing!
Prenatal Environmental Influences:
Maternal Nutrition
Malnutrition:
• Can cause damage to the central nervous system
• Reduced brain weight (esp. if malnutrition happened in the 3rd trimester)
• Suppresses development of the immune system
Prevention:
• More food does not equal better nutrition
• Vitamins are great, too! (folic acid especially!)
Seems like a lot of nutrients to get in on a constant basis, right? It is!
Prenatal vitamins help to supplement nutrition, but are not a substitution for eating health, well-balanced meals.
Prenatal Environmental Influences:
Maternal Emotional Stress
When women are stressed, large amounts of blood are sent to the parts of the body that need to respond (heart, brain, muscles) reducing blood flow to the uterus.
Maternal stress hormones cross the placenta, causing a rise in fetal stress hormones.
Prenatal Environmental Influences:
Maternal Blood Incompatibility
Blood incompatibility between mother and father
Rh factor incompatibility:
When the father is Rh-negative and the mother is Rh-positive the baby is often Rh-positive. The mother’s antibodies will fight with the baby’s blood type as it is being born. Doesn’t usually affect a first child, and can be prevented through a vaccine after a baby is born so that additional babies aren’t affected.
Prenatal Environmental Influences:
Maternal Age and Previous Births
Older => more likely to experience miscarriage, chromosomal defects, etc.
Fertility is affected by age, but pregnancy rates for women in their 30s are about the same as women in their 20s.

The Importance of Prenatal Health Care
Watch out for
• Gestational Diabetes
• Preeclampsia (toxemia)
Barriers to seeking prenatal care
• Situational barriers (contextual): can’t find transportation, no available appointments, unhappy with choice of doctors
• Personal barriers: family crises, lack of knowledge about prenatal care, other children to care for
• Think about people who can’t tell anyone they’re pregnant.
Group prenatal care
6 surprising facts about prenatal care around the world
Belgium: prescribed massages
Costa Rica: much longer appointments (2 hours!)
France: reprimanded for too much weight gain
Americans average 15 prenatal visits during a 40-week pregnancy, but the World Health Organization only recommends 4!
81% of women in developing countries have 1 prenatal visit, and 36% have 4 prenatal visits.
Tanzania: 45-minute initial visit with 30-minute follow ups.
Africa: 25% of maternal deaths occur during pregnancy (could be much less with prenatal care)
http://pregnant.thebump.com/
pregnancy/prenatal-checkups-tests/ articles/prenatal-care-facts-around-world.aspx
Preparing for Parenthood
Seeking Information:
Studying/Reading increases mother’s & father’s self confidence about raising a child
The Baby Becomes a Reality:
Attachment begins before birth, but the reality of pregnancy sets in at different times for different people.
Models of Effective Parenthood:
Parents-to-be who participate in parenting programs also feel more comfortable about their new roles as parents.
The Parental Relationship:
The coparenting relationship is important to the development of the child. Having a strong relationship will also make the transition to parenting easier and more enjoyable.
Trophoblasts
from Greek trephein: to feed; and blastos: germinator
Trophoblasts are cells forming the outer layer of a blastocyst, which provide nutrients to the embryo and develop into a large part of the placenta.
Amnion
A thin membrane that surrounds the fetus during pregnancy.
The amnion is the inner of the two fetal membranes (the chorion is the outer one), and it contains the amniotic fluid.
chorion
an extraembryonic fetal membrane, composed of trophoblast lined with mesoderm; it develops villi, becomes vascularized, and forms the fetal part of the placenta.
The outermost fetal membrance in human embryos, the villous part of which becomes the fetal part of the placenta.
the ectoderm folds over to form the ______
the neural tube, precursor to the spinal cord
lanugo
fine, soft hair that covers the body and limbs of a human fetus or newborn.
Helps vernix stick to the skin
Vernix
the white creamy waxy stuff that newborn babies have on their skin when they’re born.
It starts developing in the womb, to protect the baby’s skin from chapping while they’re floating around in water for 9 months.
The baby’s body starts to absorb the vernix during the later stages of pregnancy, so premature babies tend to have more than full term babies.
The age of viability occurs sometime between
22 and 26 weeks.
Typically, a woman’s menstrual cycle lasts about….
28 days.
A typical pregnancy usually lasts for about
38 weeks.
The amniotic fluid
maintains a constant temperature in the womb and provides a cushion against jolts caused by the mother’s movement.
In which period are serious prenatal effects most likely to occur due to the effects of teratogens?
the embryonic period
Infants who are prenatally exposed to cocaine….
typically have lasting difficulties.
How much alcohol is required to produce Fetal Alcohol Effects (FAE)?
no amount is safe, so pregnant women should avoid alcohol entirely!
When provided with enriched diets, fetal alcohol syndrome babies
still fail to catch up in physical size during infancy and childhood.
Pregnant women who eat undercooked meat or clean a cat’s litter box are at risk for
toxoplasmosis.
Folic acid supplementation around the time of conception reduces the incidence of
neural tube defects.
The most common cause of serious problems resulting from differing blood types in mother and baby is
Rh factor incompatibility
The complication for mothers in which blood pressure increases sharply and the face, hands, and feet swell in the last half of pregnancy is called
toxemia
An Apgar score of __________ indicates that the infant is in good physical condition.
7 or above
Apgar
invented in 1952 as a method to quickly summarize the health of newborn children.
Apgar was an anesthesiologist who developed the score in order to ascertain the effects of obstetric anesthesia on babies.
The Apgar scale is determined by evaluating the newborn baby on five simple criteria on a scale from 0 to 2, then summing up the five values thus obtained.
The resulting Apgar score ranges from 0 to 10. The five criteria are summarized using words chosen to form a backronym Appearance, Pulse, Grimace, Activity, Respiration
Cesarean delivery
may result in newborns who are sleepy and unresponsive.
With respect to stimulation of preterm infants, massaging the baby several times a day in the hospital led to ….
better mental and motor development.
Findings from the Kauai study revealed that
in a supportive home environment, even children with serious birth problems can develop successfully.
The __________ reflex helps a breastfed baby find the mother’s nipple.
rooting
The most effective way to sooth a crying baby is to
lift the baby to the shoulder and rock or walk.
Research on the sense of smell indicates that…
newborn infants recognize the smell of their own mother’s breast.
