How do we predict consequences?

I was just reading the latest issue of TIME magazine. There's an article on research on how the 9 months we spend in the womb affect our health and well-being as children and even as adults. Apparently, infants in the womb take on many of their mother's issues.

The article identified the potential to change this, to make babies less like their parents and more strong, healthy and stable. That sounds like a very good thing.

But. . . you probably know someone who feels like she or he grew up in the wrong family, who feels so different from parents and siblings that it is almost inconceivable they are all kin. And that's not good.

It's possible that the way we are set up, it is more important for us to feel like we belong to our parents than it is that we achieve optimal physical health. Changing that might have many unintended consequences. We need to believe we belong with the people closest to us. If we are going to make babies different than their parents, we also need to find ways to support them discovering that they are still enough the same to be one family.

We want babies to be healthy. And we want babies to connect so strongly with their parents that they know - for sure and for always - that they can trust their connection.

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