THE FIRST 8 WEEKS
The first scene shows a young brave man named Bruno crossing ravine 850 meters above sea level on a rope that is 2.5 cm thick. We might be wondering about how he can balance himself on such a tiny rope without being scared. This has been answered at the end of the video which explains the vestibular system plays a major role in keeping Bruno upright. By the 8th week, a maze of looping tunnel is carved out and filled with fluid to form the inner ear which will give a sense of balance.
In this video, it shows that eight crucial and perilous week from the moment of conception to the assembly of vital organs and formation of human body. For the first story, the documentary documented four quadruplets sisters, Holly, Jessica, Elly, and Georgie. This process starts with the meeting of a single sperm cell and a single egg cell that will produce one human but in their case, it is incredibly rare. Hundreds of cells formed at day 5 that supposed to be creating a single human but there were a vital communication broke down among the cells and it created distinct clumps of cell to begin to behave independently from each other. The result is four identical sisters.
In the second story, we can see a 90-year old bright and spry man, Mr.Kamatura lived a long healthy life. The reasons why he is still living up to this day was because of what happened inside his mother’s womb. In the 8th day after conception, the changes of our body determine the longevity of life. In this part too, baby Nuha was born during wet season. The seasons determine the food that the mother will consume during the pregnancy and it will affects the baby. A study by Britain’s Medical Research Council shows that those who were conceived in the dry season, they are seven times more likely to die in young adulthood than those who were conceived in the wet season. During wet season, there are fewer calories but more leafy, green vegetables. Leafy, green vegetable provide chemical that binds to the strand of DNA and this will change how some of our genes work. Those who are born in the dry season have key gene that is overactive, which is less able to fight infection. This specify the phrase “you are what your mother eat”.
Around day 15, the cells begin to transform into 400 different cells. There are three layers which are bottom layer, middle layer and top layer. The bottom layer will form our guts and liver, the middle forms the kidney, muscle, bones, and blood, and the top layer, forms the skin, hair, teeth, and brain. Melanie Gaydos is an international model that has a genetic condition called ectodermal dysplasia. In her case, the top layer in her body did not develop as expected which makes her hair grow inward and her skin sensitive. The changes in her TP63 gene causes her striking appearances.
On the 18th day, there are thousands of cells now and at this part of the moment, the growth gene switches on. We will inherited genes from our parents. However, in Nell’s cases, she inherited two of her father’s genes which makes her a bit taller for her age. The growth hormone is called IGF-2. This leads to greater risk of developing cancer but fortunately, she is healthy and her kidneys size are normal.
Around day 19th, our organ should be assembled and it is necessary for our organs to end up at the right place. As for Randy Foye, his heart is at the right side instead of at the left side. This happens because the cilia that determine the layout of our internal organ did not spin. This case might cause fatal but he is lucky.
After 21 days, the embryo that looks like a flat disk will begin to fold and create a tube. During the scan, Hannah and Adam’s baby, Amelia has some issues with the heart. The aorta is too narrow and blood could not get through and their baby has to undergo a surgery quickly after the birth. The doctor removed the narrow that causes the problem from the baby’s heart and she is doing fine until now.
After the 38th days, the cells within 2 flattened paddles at the end of each limb slowly die away. In the Da Silva family, 14 out of 23 of their family members most likely having six fingers instead of five fingers. This happened because a protein named sonic-hedgehog. When there is too much sonic hedgehog, six fingers will be produced.
AGAINST THE ODDS
In this episode, it mainly talks about the middle of 16 weeks. This episode started with a young flight attendance, Cheryl. She is one of a tiny handful of people who was born without fingerprints. Cheryl only has just a few small creases on the end of her fingers. This is called as Immigration Delay Disease.
At the 8th week, we all inherit genes that instruct our bodies to make us as male or female. There will be release of critical hormone, testosterone and the baby will grow a penis. As for Johnny, Gaudeline and Carla, their bodies did not produce the kind of testosterone needed to form male genitals but, as soon as they hit puberty, they will get another surge of testosterone that will help them to grow a penis. These people are called ‘Guevedoce’.
Around week 8, our face was formed. Genes that created face switched on and off at different time and this explain why we look different from each other. When we were just the size of an apple pip during week 4, the genes that we inherited from our ancestors created a gill-like structure call the pharyngeal arches, that will become parts of the ear, jaw and the throat. Oliver was born with cleft lip. There is no family history and his cleft lip was considered as random genetic mutation. This possibly happened if there is an interruption during the assembly of the complex part of his face. His top lip then was realigned by Dr. Felicity.
On the 11th week, the nervous system learn to control our body which means that we started to move our hands and legs. We tend to favor one hand over the other. 90% of our populations are right-handed and other 10% are left-handed. It runs in the family so we can say it has got something to do with our genes. The disadvantages of the left-handed people is that they are slightly shorter and more prone to migraines and dyslexia. Tom Stalker is a left-handed person and a medal winning boxer. Natural selection favors traits that are beneficial to those which are not.
Skin colour that distinguishes us human comes in different wide spectrum of tones. At the 13th week, the baby skin colour is created. At first, the foundations for baby skin colour are not laid until week 13 which makes the baby is transparent but then, the swarm of cells called melanocytes spread and released pigments called melanin. This skin colour helps people in a hot region reduce a risk of getting skin cancer and protecting skin. Nassoro Kasim is an albino and his body unable to make melanin. He will get blister if staying too long under the sun. As for him, nothing can stop his passion in football. He and his other albino friends will wait until the sun set so that they can play football without hurting their skin.
Immune system become fully active during week 14, and getting ready for life after the birth immune system. Joanne Chapman, or Jo, had an aggressive form of blood cancer and needed a bone marrow transplant. Human Leukocytes Antigen system detect traces of virus and destroy the virus outside of the cells. Fortunately, she found a match of bone marrow of 22 years old guy that almost matched her perfectly. Our immune system is different from each other. According to some studies, it depends on who you find attractive. In the rating of sexiness based on smell of the shirt experiment, the girl choose the man with different type of immune system than her immune system. This study show that the immune system might has influence on who you found attractive.
Around week 15, the cerebral hemisphere has all the brain cells they ever need. The mind can be affected by our culture, parents or the book you have read. Laird Hamilton is a risk taker. He is a wave surfer. By the 15th week, testosterone is released and the surge happened to coincides with the time when parts of the brain that formed personality are being organised. This will determine how thrill-seeking we are. Other than that, people with high testosterone have a longer ring finger compared to their index finger. It is also stated that our gender does not match our genitals. Mattie is a girl in boy’s body. This happened because the testosterone in her body made her body male but it did not reach the brain and that is why Mattie feels female.
During the 23 weeks in the womb, our body starts to pile on significantly amount of fat. Fat provides energy that muscles needed after we are born. There was a mysterious disease on the Faroe Island that silently killed the people in that place. Dr. Jan Rasmussen discovered a remarkable discovery. He found out that in the muscle of the heart, there exist a component called carnitine, which unlocks the energy and without this component, the heart will have a risk of stopping. We received carnitine from our mother when we were in her womb but as we were born, the carnitine is from our diet. Majken was able to survive after being injected by the carnitine and she was diagnosed with Carnitine Transporter Disease (CTD).
THE FINAL PUSH
In this last episode, it shows the final weeks of development of the baby in the womb from week 24 to 40. At week 25, the largest bone was formed, the pelvis. A 9-year-old Janelly was born without the ability to make bones. She is not gaining any weight during 3 to 4 weeks after she was born. Her mother realised something was not right about her daughter.Our bones formed by special cells called osteoblasts. It replaced the soft cartilage with hard calcium based mineral, throughout this process, there will be damaging chemical that stop the bone from hardening. In order to neutralise these damaging chemicals, the body created protein TNSALP. In Janelly case, her supple cartilage never turned to strong bone. Dr. Jill Simmons has treated Janelly for seven years and tried a new drug which will replaced missing protein that body cannot produce. After six months, she started developing real bones.
At week 27, the brain is already extremely active. The cells transform into wonderful complex structure reaching out to connect each other. At this time, the fatty sheaves are wrapped around the brain cells, and insulating them. This will enable them to send signals to the brain. Joey had an incredibly amazing memory. He could remember any event from the past few years. In order to have memories, we need to form hearing senses. The hearing is the very first to develop. Cochlea is sensory organ for hearing, it is also stated that memory comes from hearing. The sound wave causes the fluid inside cochlea to move and that causes us to hear anything around us. In the 28th week, sounds coming from outside should spark the tiny hair cells to life, sending a signal to the baby’s brain. To justify this statement, Michael Mosley conducted the experiment where he played different type of toys during scanning. Upon hearing the sound of the toys, the baby reacted by covering its face as seen from the machine. There are some mothers who read a book to their babies and stopped for a while and then started to read again to their babies. Before birth, the brain can store memory. The babies have the early memories, when we read something that rhymes or the similar things we read to them, the heart rate dropped and that shows the babies might remember something they heard.
At 28 weeks, the sense of sight starting to develop. At the back of the retina, light-sensitive cells called rods and cones grow. Cone cells are being wired up getting ready to colour our world. If vital proteins malfunction, we will live in a black and white world. In Pingelap atoll, in South Pacific, the islanders are mostly colour-deficient, which 10% of the population lived in total black and white world. One of the islanders, Herrol, struggle with painful burnt-out image without his cones working in daylight. But, as sun goes down, he will gain an amazing advantage where they can see clearly in the dark. Herrol used the ability to see int the dark to catch flying fish during night time.
It is declared that the outside world is starting to shape us even in the womb. Our mother’s diet will also affect our health as we grow older. Freddie and Lal were two men who lived similar live. They do the same work and even eat the same food. The only difference is that Lal has developed a type 2 diabetic while Freddie has not. Diabetes might develop because of what the mothers eat during pregnancy or can be developed when the diet is not right. Lal was from a small village in Punjab where everyone eats food like daal, rotis and rice. The life he is in now is very contrast than the situation he was conceived in. Lal mother’s diet is low in fat and sugar and that is why the food he is eating now affects him because the high calories food are not programmed for his body while he was in the womb. Unlike Freddie, he lives in Mumbai, his mother has already eat high calories food so his body was programmed to eat food like his mother used to so that resolve why he has no diabetes.
Julie was 30th week pregnant with Vincent when there was a collapse of the civilisations in Quebec, Canada. The citizens were living under constant stress since there was no electricity for 22 days. Julie was living under constant stress during her pregnancy and the stress caused cortisol to be released into bloodstream. Her son, Vincent has problem with his language development. Professor Suzanne King conducted a test where she took swabs of DNA from children as they grew. The results were disturbing as crucial genes had been switched on and off. It is noted that the more days that the pregnant mothers spent without electricity, the bigger the effect on their unborn babies, and bigger the impact on their lives as they grow up. The greater the number of day without electricity, the lower the IQ of the child. So, stressful environment will affect our genes before we are born.
At 37 weeks, almost all of our vital organs are fully built and only breathing is yet to be developed. When we were in the womb, we started to practice breathing with the lungs. Tiny alveoli form, getting us ready for breathing. Sam, a free diver, was born six week premature so she could not develop the lungs properly. Without the proper development of lungs, we will struggle to breathe as the absorption of oxygen into the bloodstream will be quite difficult. Even though she was born six week premature, she can still hold her breath for a long time for someone who has trouble with lungs. She is the living proof of the imperfections happened in the womb does not shaped her and she can still breath like a normal people would or even better than them.
So after 38 weeks of developing things and facing some critical moment, the baby is ready. Once the baby is born, their umbilical cord must be cut off. Then, the lungs are ready for the next adventure of life.
References
the first 8 weeks. (2015). Retrieved from countdown to life the extraordinary making of you: https://ihavenotv.com/the-first-8-weeks-countdown-to-life-the-extraordinary-making-of-you
against the odd. (2015). Retrieved from countdown to life the extraordinary of making you: https://ihavenotv.com/against-the-odds-countdown-to-life-the-extraordinary-making-of-you
the final push. (2015). Retrieved from countdown to life the extraordinary making of you: https://ihavenotv.com/the-final-push-countdown-to-life-the-extraordinary-making-of-you
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