The consciousness of infants
There is evidence that some form of conscious experience is present by birth, and perhaps even in late pregnancy, an international team of researchers from Trinity College Dublin and colleagues in Australia, Germany and the USA has found. …
To provide a new perspective on when consciousness first emerges, the team built upon recent advances in consciousness science. In adults, some markers from brain imaging have been found to reliably differentiate consciousness from its absence, and are increasingly applied in science and medicine. This is the first time that a review of these markers in infants has been used to assess their consciousness.
Co-author of the study, Lorina Naci, Associate Professor in the School of Psychology, who leads Trinity’s ‘Consciousness and Cognition Group, explained: “Our findings suggest that newborns can integrate sensory and developing cognitive responses into coherent conscious experiences to understand the actions of others and plan their own responses.”
I’m not the least surprised. My son was born at around 5:30 in the morning. That afternoon, he was awake and swaddled and I was holding him in my arms. I’d had very little experience taking care of babies prior to that. He looked me right in the eye and I was stunned at the awareness I perceived there. It was really an encounter with a person, a fairly strong-willed one who seemed to be saying, “I expect you to do right by me.”
What a beautiful story about you and your son. Thank you for sharing that!
Men truly have no understanding, nor method of understanding the relationship between a mother and a child she has birthed.
My wife and I got on very well after she birthed our first child. She had no post-partum emotional issues and I did not feel any sense of jealousy over the role our new son had in her life. However, I do remember sensing, very early on, that she would kill me without hesitation if she felt I was any threat to her child. Rather than make me jealous I actually found this very impressive, inspirational even. It even made me more attracted to her. Her love for me didn’t diminish, but I could see her and our child (and subsequent children) had a physical and emotional bond I would never truly comprehend.
When I was a very young child, I was aware of an initial point when I became ” awake”, like a switch being turned on . I could remember it.
At this point, at aged 53, it more of a memory of a memory.
Jon baker:
I have a similar memory. When it happened, I said to my mother in astonishment, “I’m me and you’re you!”
These are very touching comments regarding infants and mothers. Supported by science and human experience over the ages.
And yet the death cult of abortion insists that the unborn have no such awareness. Or the bioethics big thinkers such as Peter Singer rationalize infanticide.
Truly evil.
Our oldest went through a long and difficult labor that almost ended in a C-section. Unbeknownst to our midwife, his head was cocked to the side, preventing him from passing through the pelvic bones; the midwife, getting worried, finally called in the OB on call, who felt around in there and determined what was going on. He attempted to turn and adjust our baby’s position and said he’d give me 15 more minutes, but after that he was operating.
The adjustment worked and our son was born within that 15 minutes. But he had the most shell-shocked look on his face from the moment of emergence. He may not have had the ability to form conscious long-term memories yet, but I remember thinking that he had been well aware of what he was going through.
Funny (not) thing: he suffers from anxiety and catastrophizing to this day. An epigenetic effect? Too many stress hormones for too long?
And yet the death cult of abortion insists that the unborn have no such awareness. Or the bioethics big thinkers such as Peter Singer rationalize infanticide.
Anyone who has seen the movie “Unplanned” is well aware of fetal consciousness. As the fetus tries to get away from the vacuum tube that is going to kill it, it’s easy to see what is happening.
Thanks for sharing your mothering story in relating to your son. Those stories are some of the most treasured memories we can share.
My oldest daughter and I had a similar experience with our second daughter.
Daughter #2 was a fairly intense homebirth and #1 was in the house with a friend while midwife team and I were with my wife. Daughter #2 arrived and they handed her to me after a bit and directed me out of the way while they tended to my wife. I sat on the floor near where they were and D#1 came and for a few surreal moments D#2 looked back and forth between us and (hand to heart) smiled differently at each of us, like she knew we were the different people she had heard talking to her from outside…or something.
Those first moments…
Oh, my! I love this post and the comments. Makes me emotional. Also reminds me of a Youtube video of a woman singing, beautifully, to a very young baby and its emotional, strong reaction and facial expression as it strained to absorb the wonderful voice and smiling face of the woman. The utter joy and recognition of musical notes and those moments entered that baby’s soul.
Mine, too.
I think most babies respond naturally to their mothers’ voices, because they’ve heard them from inside for months. Dad, too, although they heard him less clearly.
Oh, my! I love this post and the comments. Makes me emotional. Also reminds me of a Youtube video of a woman singing, beautifully, to a very young baby and its emotional, strong reaction and facial expression as it strained to absorb the wonderful voice and smiling face of the woman. The utter joy and recognition of musical notes and those moments entered that baby’s soul.
Mine, too.
Both of the births of my babies were so unusually painful (the first required three episiotomies and forceps, and the nurse ended up helping the doctor by shoving on my stomach as he pulled. He literally threw our screaming baby son on my stomach after he was born to attend to me, — the second wasn’t much calmer or nicer, so I had no wonderful birthing moments to remember. But I smile remembering how much I loved them.
Related?
“It turns out we have a second brain — and it’s our gut;
“The Gut-Brain Axis is the hottest area of science as researchers find evidence bacteria in the gut helps the brain think and grow”—
https://nationalpost.com/feature/gut-brain-axis-how-the-mind-is-connected-to-the-belly
I guess a baby’s smart enough to figure out that Mom is THE source of a nice tasty meal…which, come to think of it, is a pretty good way to start off a relationship…
Opening graf:
“It wasn’t the most newsworthy event of February 2020. But when 50 or so Canadian babies filled their diapers during those last days before the pandemic lockdown fell over North America, it was a collective effort of major scientific significance….”
When I first met my eldest daughter after birth, when they placed her in my arms, I was stunned by how much I immediately loved her, and how much she clearly needed me to love her. She was afraid but curious, and certainly a human being. She changed my life.
My nephew’s son was born very premature. He was born right at about six months. It was terrifying. His mother was airlifted, and he spent almost three months in the NICU. And he was definitely a little person. A helpless little person, but a little person working on a personality. He didn’t magically acquire it the moment he was delivered. He clearly knew his mother and got to know his father. (They were the only humans besides medical staff who could hold him.)
Around the same time, some creature in California had her boyfriend beat her up until she could no longer feel the baby. She was at about eight months, as I recall. No one was charged. I cried for that baby. It was murdered. I keep thinking of my great-nephew. (Who is now in elementary school and boy scouts. And quite the young man.)
Yes, a heartwarming post and wonderful comments.
The love for our children is very deep and lasting. That such love can exist in a world that seems bent on settling our differences with violence is a wonder. Ah, that we could love our fellow humans at least a tiny bit like we love our children.
“My son was born at around 5:30 in the morning. That afternoon, he was awake and swaddled and I was holding him in my arms. I’d had very little experience taking care of babies prior to that. He looked me right in the eye and I was stunned at the awareness I perceived there.”
I was in the room when my daughter was born and when the nurse handed her to me, she was certainly less than an hour old. I too was stunned at the awareness I perceived there and I don’t care what the experts say, I know what I saw in her eyes. Perfect awareness, no thoughts, just ‘being there’.
I suspect they ‘tune into’ our thinking and they begin to adapt.
“There are more things in heaven and Earth Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy”
I had the same experience, Neo. I had twins, a boy and a girl. Almost right after birth. My son was pitching a fit, crying uncontrollably. My daughter was looking around, observing the scene. I got the vibe that she was very conscious. Now she is a very intellectual and spiritual young woman who is considering a life in the convent as a Carmelite. My son, no intellectual slouch, is playing college football. I love them both dearly.
Thank you for such a wonderful post Neo. Sounds to me that the scientists are studying things that are a given to most of the mom’s I’ve known.
My earliest memory, as I make it, was when I was 4-5 years-old.
My sister went to one of those trendy rebirthing workshops in the 70s. As she was guided into re-experiencing her birth, she had a a terrible feeling of choking.
Later she asked our mother about her birth. Mom said, “I thought you were going to die.” Her birth had been one of those messy ones where the umbilical cord gets wrapped around the baby’s throat.
Don’t know.
I wonder whether the problem with our earliest memories is one of retrieval, not our consciousness at the time.
Newborns recognize their mother’s voices, their mother’s native language, and things their mothers say often. Also father’s if he’s about enough.
(They prefer them. If you give them a pacifier, they will suck or not depending on which brings the familiar recording.)
Davemay,
Wow, a Carmelite. Would she be cloistered?
}}} And yet the death cult of abortion insists that the unborn have no such awareness. Or the bioethics big thinkers such as Peter Singer rationalize infanticide.
TBH, here, however, even Neo’s own observations are blatantly subjective and strongly emotional. Humans are not great at making rational analysis in situations in which they have strong emotions.
Not saying she is in any way wrong. Just noting that it’s not necessarily reliable, even though in many many cases, I would take her own serious position as more reliable than that of many others.
However — this study is, if accurate, an actual objective measure of such, which can and should, if accurate, constrain the point at which something like abortion can even be considered. It provides an actual objective basis for making laws.
And that should be how laws are made.
A) “I’m not the least surprised.”
• 100% agree.
B) “We know that seeing is much more immature in babies than hearing, for example. Furthermore, this work suggests that, at any point in time, infants are aware of fewer items than adults, and can take longer to grasp what’s in front of them, but they can easily process more diverse information, such as sounds from other languages, than their older selves.”
• This also does not surprise me.
C) And it will not surprise me if science discovers that the timeline for the development of those attributes – and others – occurs earlier & earlier in the pregnancy.
• There is still so much more to learn, and science – discovery – will continue to influence what people think about Abortion.
• Which is why in the future people will probably talk about Abortion in the same way that they talk about Slavery today: How could they do that, How could they not understand, How could they believe, etc.
Thank you for sharing.
When my strong-willed oldest was in the womb, she would play with me by bonking wherever I placed my hand. She was Daddy’s girl before she ever came out.