Amazing facts of motherhood

Politics

Shambhala Sunspace reports that the Dalai Lama recently remarked:

Now, the time has come we must make every effort for the promotion of human compassion and human affection. In that respect female, biologically, more sort of sensitivity toward other's pain.

Science suggests that the Dalai Lama is right. Our Selves, Other Cells by Jena Pincott -- excerpted from her book Do Chocolate Lovers Have Sweeter Babies?: The Surprising Science of Pregnancy -- offers fascinating facts about the way in which human beings mutually and physically interpenetrate at a cellular level during pregnancy and beyond. Pincott looks at how mothers and thier babies swap cells; cells from one remain part of the other forever....
You have to read the whole article but here are two excerpts that resonate with me from a Buddhist perspective...

Researchers working with mice have found evidence that cells from the fetus can cross a mother's brain-blood barrier and generate new neurons. If this happens in humans -- and there's reason to believe it does -- then it means, in a very real sense, that our babies integrate themselves into the circuitry of our minds. Could this help explain the remarkable finding that new mothers grow new gray matter in their prefrontal cortex (goals and social control), hypothalamus (hormonal regulation), and other areas of the brain?

And:

How many people have left their DNA in us? Any baby we've ever conceived, even ones we've miscarried unknowingly. Sons leave their Y chromosome genes in their mothers. The fetal cells from each pregnancy, flowing in a mother's bloodstream, can be passed on to her successive kids. If we have an older sibling, that older sibling's cells may be in us. The baby in a large family may harbor the genes of many brothers and sisters. My mother's cells are in my body, and so are my daughter's cells, and half my daughter's DNA comes from her dad. Some of those cells may be in my brain.

Talk about interconnection! Check it out.

5 comments

Michele

Jan 14, 2012 at 12:36 AM

of the amazing fact of cells passing between child and mother is hemolytic disease of the newborn, which is why Rh negative mothers are given RhoGAM in pregnancy:

The hemolytic condition occurs when there is an incompatibility between the blood types of the mother and the fetus. There is also potential incompatibility if the mother is Rh negative and the father is positive. When any incompatibility is detected, the mother receives an injection at 28 weeks gestation and at birth to avoid the development of antibodies toward the fetus. These terms do not indicate which specific antigen-antibody incompatibility is implicated. The disorder in the fetus due to Rh D incompatibility is known as erythroblastosis fetalis. -- Wikipedia

Amazing, but before RhoGAM, deadly.

mroaks

Jan 14, 2012 at 1:33 AM

I had no idea that pregnancy was so potentially dangerous, or so involved with the sharing of cells and such back and forth.All this, the dangers as well as the re-wiring of the mother's brain etc., make it seem more amazing than I ever imagined. Pregnancy just seemed like an ordinary thing, but it's extraordinary.Sorry to be stating the obvious. I dunno -- I just never really thought about it.

mroaks

Jan 14, 2012 at 1:39 AM

OK, brookie, I'm gonna rattle your cage. Explain to me why the Dalai Lama's statement is not sexist. He's basically saying that women biologically are better than men at being compassionate. If he had said that men are better than women at manifesting wisdom, you'd raise a protest.So explain. Is there a double standard at work here?

joeisuzu

Jan 14, 2012 at 3:41 AM

"Hey, Lama, hey, how about a little something, you know, for the effort, you know." And he says, "Oh, uh, there won't be any money, but when you die, on your deathbed, you will receive total consciousness." So I got that goin' for me, which is nice. I've read in the HuffPo where da Lama has stated,

"he will consult Buddhist scholars to evaluate whether the institution of the Dalai Lama should continue at all."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/24/dalai-lama-reincarnation_n_978990.htmlI'm not much of a fan of either. But the DNA issue is a fascinating one. Here's what Richard Dawkins supposedly wants read at his funeral:From Unweaving The Rainbow

"We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Arabia. Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively outnumbers the set of actual people. In the teeth of these stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here. We privileged few, who won the lottery of birth against all odds, how dare we whine at our inevitable return to that prior state from which the vast majority have never stirred?"

That's pretty poetic for a polemic. Of course a Buddhist might have their own opinion and embellishment about winning the lottery.

brooke

Jan 16, 2012 at 11:18 AM

Good point, mroaks! If the Dalai Lama were offering gender-role stereotypes, such as "boys are naturally tough while girls are naturally nurturing," I'd think it was a basically sexist statement.He implied that women have different biology, and different qualities seem to accompany this biology. It's like saying "men are biologically sort of better at producing more testosterone than women, and this has implications regarding their attitudes and behavior."Gender is more than just biology, yes, and maybe you can ding the Dalai Lama for not offering an explanatory dissertation on gender issues each time he refers to "female" or "male." He made a point about the biology of women, which I followed up with an article about biological realities during pregnancy, which might support the Dalai Lama's assertion: "female, biologically, more sort of sensitivity toward other's pain." Do you take offense at the implication: "Male, biologically, less sort of sensitivity toward other's pain"??? Yes, that's a broad generalization. Do you disagree with it?

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Amazing facts of motherhood

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