For hundreds of years, many people have believed that children are born as a “blank slate” and that their personal character begins to form from the moment that they are born. Most people feel that their personality have been shaped and molded by the numerous events experienced across the lifespan.
The reality, however, is that much of our outcomes in life are determined before we are even born. A mother’s lifestyle while she is pregnant plays an enormous role on a child’s development. These choices that are made by the mother incidentally have profound effects that affect the child throughout their life (Brennan, Grekin, & Mednick, 1999; Almond & Mazumder, 2015; Leung et al., 2010). A child’s cognitive function, personality, and tendency for criminal behavior are influenced by the choices their mothers make during pregnancy.
Antisocial Behavior
It is common to blame antisocial behavior on how a child was raised, but the fact is that much of the cognitive functions that affect a child’s behavior are typically heavily influenced before birth. Research by Ladd-Acosta et al., (2016) has shown that smoking during pregnancy typically leads to altered gene expressions of the children for the first five years of life.
Due to these alterations in gene expression, these children are at a significantly greater risk for emotional and conduct disorders (Chastang et al., 2015). Amazingly, these emotional and conduct disorders appear to affect children well into adulthood.
Furthermore, a direct correlation between the amount of violent crime committed by 34-year-old males and the amount of cigarettes smoked by their mothers while pregnant was found by Brennan et al., (1999). This conclusion supports previous findings that tobacco consumption during pregnancy significantly affects the fetus (Bagley, 1992; Ferguson, Horwood, & Lynskey, 1993; Fried, Watkinson, & Gray, 1992; Rantakallio et al., 1992; Wakschlag et al., 1997; Weitzman, Gortmaker, & Sobol, 1992).
Increased likelihood of criminal behaviour is not unique to perinatal tobacco exposure. Children exposed to excessive amounts of alcohol in the womb were also found to be 19 times more likely to be incarcerated compared to children who were not exposed to alcohol in the womb (Popova, Lange, Bekmuradov, Mihic, & Rehm, 2011; Streissguth, 2004).
Cognitive Function
In addition to a child’s increased incarceration rate when exposed to perinatal tobacco and alcohol exposure, nutrient deficiencies in a pregnant mother have been found to be equally troubling for the offspring’s development, impairing adult cognitive function later in life (Sakayori et al., 2015).
Specifically, when mothers fail to consume sufficient amounts of critical nutrients, such as omega-3’s or iron, children can develop impaired cognitive functions (Igarashi, Santos, & Cohen-Cory, 2015; Coletta, Bell, & Roman, 2010; Monk et al., 2015). In fact, children whose mothers’ fasted during Ramadan were 20 percent more likely to develop some form of learning disability (Almond & Mazumder, 2011).
These studies, in addition to the plethora of research that these studies extended upon, resoundingly suggest that much of our ability to function can be adversely affected by our mothers’ choices during pregnancy.
Neurotic Personality
In addition to our cognitive functioning and increased likelihood to engage in criminal behavior, another factor that is affected by our mother’s lifestyle choices during pregnancy is our personality. Whether or not it is advantageous to be neurotic can depend immensely on the state of the environment for the pregnant mother (Matthews, Yousfi, Schmidt-Rathjens, & Amelang, 2003). If the environment is extremely dangerous and threatening, it may be advantageous to be born neurotic, but if the environment is relatively safe, high neuroticism may needlessly increase one’s risk for anxiety or depression without offering any advantage (Matthews et al., 2003).
For this reason, mothers have developed the ability to alter their children’s personality in utero based on their level of stress (Yehuda, Engel, Brand, Seckl, Marcus, & Berkowitz, 2005). When mothers experience significant stress during pregnancy, their babies continue to show a significantly greater reactivity to stress even a year later (Leung et al., 2010; Yehuda et al., 2005).
This level of heightened stress reactivity is a central component of the neurotic personality type (Bolger & Schilling, 1991) and, in most cases, will last for the rest of the individual’s life (Kagan, 2003).
Conclusions
Our personality, as well as our cognitive function, and engagement in criminal behavior are influenced a great deal by our mother’s lifestyle during pregnancy. These aspects of an individual are central components in determining how we will develop throughout our lives. Those who believe that their identities are shaped solely by their own personal experiences are overlooking an enormous component of what defines one’s character. Rather than being born as a “blank slate”, much of our life outcomes are already determined by events that take place in the womb.
References
Almond D., & Mazumder, B. (2011). Health capital and the prenatal environment: the effect of
Ramadan observance during pregnancy. American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 3(4), 56-85
Bagley, C. (1992). Maternal smoking and deviant behaviour in 16-year-olds: a personality
hypothesis. Journal of Personality and Individual Differences, 13, 377-378.
Bolger, N., & Schilling, E. A. (1991). Personality and the problems of everyday life: The role of
neuroticism in exposure and reactivity to daily stressors. Journal of personality, 59(3), 355-386.
Brandlistuen, R. E., Ystrom, E., Eberhard-Gran, M., Nulman, I., Koren G., & Nordeng, H.
(2015). Behavioural effects of fetal antidepressant exposure in a Norwegian cohort of discordant siblings. International Journal of Epidemiology, 44 (4), 1397-1407.
Breier, B. H., Vickers, M. H., Ikenasio, B. A., Chan, K. Y., & Wong, W. P. S. (2001). Fetal programming of appetite and obesity. Molecular and cellular endocrinology, 185(1), 73- 79
Brennan, P. A., Grekin, E. R., & Mednick, S. A. (1999). Maternal smoking during pregnancy
and adult male criminal outcomes. Archives of general psychiatry, 56(3), 215-219.
Chastang, J., Baïz, N., Cadwallader, J. S., Robert S., Dywer J. L., Charpin, D. A., . . . Annessi-
Maesano, I. (2015). Correction: Postnatal Environmental Tobacco Smoke Exposure Related to Behavioral Problems in Children. PLoS ONE, 10(9), e0138164.
Coletta J. M., Bell, S. J., & Roman A. S. (2010). Omega-3 fatty acids and pregnancy. Reviews in
Obstetrics & Gynecology, 3(4), 163-71
Dikensoy, E., Balat, O., Cebesoy, B., Ozkur A., Cicek, H., & Can, G. (2009). The effect of
Ramadan fasting on maternal serum lipids, cortisol levels, and fetal development. Archives of gynecology and obstetrics, 279 (2), 119
El-Haddad, M. A., Desai, M., Gayle, D., & Ross, M. G. (2004). In utero development of fetal
thirst and appetite: potential for programming. Journal of the Society for Gynecologic Investigation, 11(3), 123-130.
Fergusson, D. M., Horwood, L. J., & Lynskey, M. T. (1994). Maternal smoking before and after
pregnancy. Pediatrics, 92,815-822.
Fried, P. A., Watkinson, B., & Gray, R. (1992). A follow-up study of attentional behavior in 6-
year-old children exposed prenatally to marihuana, cigarettes and alcohol.
Neurotoxicology and Teratology, 14, 299-311.
Igarashi, M., Santos, R. A., & Cohen-Cory, S. (2015). Impact of maternal n-3 polyunsaturated
fatty acid deficiency on dendritic arbor morphology and connectivity of developing Xenopus laevis central neurons in vivo. The Journal of Neuroscience, 35(15), 6079-6092.
Kagan, J. (2003). Biology, context, and developmental inquiry. Annual Review of Psychology,
54(1), 1-23.
Ladd-Acosta, C., Shu, C., Lee, B. K., Gidaya, N., Singer, A., Schieve, L. A., … & Newschaffer,
C. J. (2016). Presence of an epigenetic signature of prenatal cigarette smoke exposure in
childhood. Environmental research, 144, 139-148.
Lee, N. M., Lucke, J., Hall, W. D., Meurk, C., Boyle, F. M., & Carter, A. (2013). Public views
on food addiction and obesity: implications for policy and treatment. PloS one, 8(9), e74836.
Leung, E., Tasker, S. L., Atkinson, L., Vaillancourt, T., Schulkin, J., & Schmidt, L. A. (2010).
Perceived maternal stress during pregnancy and its relation to infant stress reactivity at 2 days and 10 months of postnatal life. Clinical pediatrics, 49(2), 158-165.
Lewis, D. O., Shanok, S. S., & Balla, D. A. (1979). Perinatal difficulties, head and face trauma,
and child abuse in the medical histories of seriously delinquent children. American Journal of Psychiatry, 136, 419- 423.
Lupien, S. J., De Leon, M., De Santi, S., Convit, A., Tarshish, C., Nair, N. P. V., … & Meaney,
M. J. (1998). Cortisol levels during human aging predict hippocampal atrophy and memory deficits. Nature neuroscience, 1(1), 69-73.
Matthews, G., Yousfi, S., Schmidt-Rathjens, C., & Amelang, M. (2003). Personality variable
differences between disease clusters. European journal of personality, 17(2), 157-177.
Monk, C., Georgieff, M. K., Xu, D., Hao, X., Bansal, R., Gustafsson, H., … & Peterson, B. S. (2015). Maternal prenatal iron status and tissue organization in the neonatal brain. Pediatric research. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/pr.2015.248
Popova, S., Lange, S., Bekmuradov, D., Mihic, A., & Rehm, J. (2011). Fetal alcohol spectrum
disorder prevalence estimates in correctional systems: a systematic literature review. Canadian Journal of Public Health, 102 (5), 336-340.
Portrait, F., Teeuwiszen, E., & Deeg, D. (2001). Early life undernutrition and chronic diseases at
older ages: The effects of the Dutch famine on cardiovascular diseases and diabetes. Social Science & Medicine, 73 (5), 711-718
Rantakallio, P., Laara, E., Isohanni, M., Moilanen, I. (1992). Maternal smoking during
pregnancy and delinquency of the offspring: an association without causation?. International Journal of Epidemiology, 21, 1106-1113.
Reynolds, C. M., Gray, C., Li, M., Segovia, S. A., & Vickers, M. H. (2015). Early Life Nutrition
and Energy Balance Disorders in Offspring in Later Life. Nutrients, 7(9), 8090-8111.
Sakayori N., Takako, K., Hisanori, T., Emiko, K., Kaichi, Y., Hiroshi, K., . . . Noriko, O. (2016).
Maternal dietary imbalance between omega-6 and omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids impairs neocortical development via epoxy metabolites. Stem Cells, 34 (2), 470-482.
Shapira, N. (2008). Prenatal nutrition: a critical window of opportunity for mother and child.
Women’s Health, 4 (6), 639-56
Sridhar, S. B., Darbinian, J., Ehrlich, S. F., Markman, M. A., Gunderson, E. P., Ferrara, A., &
Hedderson, M. M. (2014). Maternal gestational weight gain and offspring risk for childhood overweight or obesity. American journal of obstetrics and gynecology, 211(3), 259.e1-259.e8.
Streissguth, A. P., Ann, P., Bookstein, F. L., Barr, H. M., Sampson, P. D., O’Malley, K., Young,
J. K. (2004). Risk factors for adverse life outcomes in fetal alcohol syndrome and fetal alcohol effects. Journal of Developmental & Behavioral Pediatrics, 25 (4), 228-238
Wakschlag, L. S., Lahey, B. B., Loeber, R., Green, S. M., Gordon, R., & Leventhal, B. L.
(1997). Maternal smoking during pregnancy and the risk of conduct disorder in boys. Archives of General Psychiatry, 54, 670-676.
Weitzman, M., Gortmaker, S., & Sobol, A. (1992). Maternal smoking and behavioral problems
of children. Pediatrics, 90, 342-349.
Yehuda, R., Engel, S. M., Brand, S. R., Seckl, J., Marcus, S. M., & Berkowitz, G. S. (2005). Transgenerational effects of posttraumatic stress disorder in babies of mothers exposed to the World Trade Center attacks during pregnancy. The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, 90 (7), 4115-4118.