08/06/2025
This is a must read, highlighting recent research and terminology about the impact of trauma on an infant in utero.
BEN & IN-UTERO, BIRTH & SEPARATION EVENTS
Science has been aware of the involvement of the autonomic nervous system, ANS, in pain, hunger, fear and rage since 1915, courtesy of research performed by Walter Bradford Canon, [1]. Yet the first official recognition of trauma’s involvement with the ANS didn’t occur until 1980 when the American Psychiatric Association, (APA), added Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, (PTSD), to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, (DSM-III). And, whilst the DSM-III did also explicitly address and classify mental disorders in children, [2], it took nearly twenty years more for the ACE Study to show the traumatic impact of adverse experiences in childhood and adolescence, (1995-1997). However, there was still no automatic extrapolation to the impact of adversity even earlier in life: in-utero, during or after birth – now referred to as Adverse Babyhood Experiences, ABEs, [3]. All despite foetuses and perinatal babies possessing an ANS!
Our ANS actually begins functioning in the womb, e.g., using ultrasound it is possible to hear a heartbeat as early as the sixth week of gestational age, [4]. Then, in the third trimester our vagus nerve becomes myelinated, [5]. All indicates that regulatory activity mediated by the ANS begins in-utero and contributes significantly to foetal development, [6]. Thus, it follows that if we have an ANS in-utero, we also have emotions and so can have sensory experience too. But more importantly, an ANS in-utero means we are also at risk of trauma in-utero just as we are after birth or any other time in our life.
In fact, foetal or post-natal complications, (e.g. maternal pathologies; birth difficulties; the stressful environment of an incubator, [7], [8]; the lack of skin-to-skin contact), have been shown to impair maturation of the ANS, [9]. The latter is no small matter when ANS maturation influences development of our whole brain and thus impacts our behaviour, our stress response and our mood regulation.
The bottom line: the fact that the ANS is present in us when we are an embryo, a foetus and a newborn puts us at risk of BEN far earlier than we ever realise. Ignorance of this fact is obscuring visibility of the trauma origin of many diseases in our society.
MORE INFORMATION:
📌 Introduction of BEN: https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=894198262721482&set=a.457198723088107
📌 Proposed link between BEN and Mental illness later in life:
https://www.facebook.com/somatictao/videos/1022711879639033
📌 Initial results of ABEs Survey: https://www.facebook.com/chronicillnesstraumastudies/posts/1179576644173141?notif_id=1738967061305781¬if_t=mention&ref=notif
RESEARCH:
[1] Cannon, W. B. (1915). Bodily changes in pain, hunger, fear and rage: An account of recent researches into the function of emotional excitement. D Appleton & Company.
https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1037/10013-000
[2] Robert L. Spitzer, Dennis P. Cantwell, The DSM-III Classification of the Psychiatric Disorders of Infancy, Childhood, and Adolescence, Journal of the American Academy of Child Psychiatry, Volume 19, Issue 3, 1980, Pages 356-370,
ISSN 0002-7138, https://doi.org/10.1016/S0002-7138(09)61059-1
[3] Mead V., Comprehensive Guide to Adverse Babyhood Experiences and Chronic Illness (Free eBook and ABE Fact Sheets For Your Doctor). 2019
https://chronicillnesstraumastudies.com/abes-chronic-illness/
[4] Rodgers S. K., Chang C., DeBardeleben J. T., Horrow M. M. (2015). Normal and abnormal US findings in early first-trimester pregnancy: review of the society of radiologists in ultrasound 2012 consensus panel recommendations. RadioGraphics 35, 2135–2148. https://doi.org/10.1148/rg.2015150092
[5] Mulkey S. B., du Plessis A. (2018). The critical role of the central autonomic nervous system in fetal-neonatal transition. Semin. Pediatr. Neurol. 28, 29–37. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.spen.2018.05.004
[6] Cerritelli F, Frasch MG, Antonelli MC, Viglione C, Vecchi S, Chiera M, Manzotti A. A Review on the Vagus Nerve and Autonomic Nervous System During Fetal Development: Searching for Critical Windows. Front Neurosci. 2021 Sep 20;15:721605. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2021.721605
[7] De Jonckheere, J., Storme, L. NIPE is related to parasympathetic activity. Is it also related to comfort?. J Clin Monit Comput 33, 747–748 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10877-019-00276-1
[8] Weber A., Harrison T. M. (2019). Reducing toxic stress in the neonatal intensive care unit to improve infant outcomes. Nurs. Outlook 67, 169–189.
https://www.nursingoutlook.org/article/S0029-6554%2818%2930210-0/abstract
[9] Mulkey, S.B., du Plessis, A.J. Autonomic nervous system development and its impact on neuropsychiatric outcome. Pediatr Res 85, 120–126 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41390-018-0155-0
