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Home > Education > Beginning of life > Foetal Development | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Foetal Development |
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A human life begins when sperm from the father fertilises the egg from the mother, usually in the fallopian tube. The genes from the mother and father combine, and a new human being is created – a single cell genetically related to both parents but distinct from them. The new cell, a zygote, is smaller than a grain of sand, but he or she already contains the information that makes each human being unique. The zygote’s genetic code contains gender, facial features, body type, colour of hair, eyes, skin, and much more. The zygote is a unique and individual member of the human family and is the same person who will become an adult human being. Straight after conception Embryonic development begins as the zygote divides into two cells, then four, then eight and so on. When the embryo has divided into between 12 and 16 cells, he or she is called a morula (Latin for mulberry).
Five or six days The embryo, or blastocyst makes his or her way down into the womb and starts to burrow into the lining. This is called implantation and takes up to seven days. Once implantation has occurred, the placenta starts to form. Nourishment and oxygen pass from the mother’s blood to the baby’s blood via the placenta, although their blood does not mix and they have separate blood streams. The baby is connected to the placenta by the umbilical cord and, from this point on, develops very quickly. Around 15 days The beginnings of the child’s nervous system appear in the form of what is known as the primitive streak, which develops into the spinal column. This is the point at which the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 19901 says that embryo experimentation must be concluded with the killing of the unborn child. This is an arbitrary point in what is a continuous process of development.
Before the unborn baby’s mother knows she is pregnant, the child’s heart starts to beat. Sir William Liley observes: "By 30 days, just two weeks past [the] mother’s first missed period, the baby – one quarter of an inch long – has a brain of unmistakable human proportions, eyes, ears, mouth, kidneys, liver, an umbilical cord and a heart pumping blood he has made himself"2. Seven weeks About the time of the mother’s second missed period, spontaneous movements begin. The outer ear is present and the inner ear, with hearing and balancing mechanisms, is well established. The skeleton begins to change from cartilage to bone. Eight weeks All of the child’s organs are present at least in a basic form, including the retina of the eye and the canals in the ear. His or her head, arms, legs, muscles and skin have all begun to take shape and the brain and nervous system begin to function. From now on the baby is called a foetus3. 11 weeks The foetus is now about three inches long, moves around freely and is growing very fast. He or she can produce complex facial expressions and even smile4. The foetus is now bigger than the placenta, and the sac around the baby fills with fluid to allow the growing baby to move around and exercise. He or she can now respond to light, noise and pressure. 17 weeks The baby is about 16 cm (a little over six inches) long, and makes his or her presence known to the mother with kicks, punches and somersaults. Vocal chords have formed. 20 weeks Although the heart will have started to beat at around three weeks, now it can be heard through a stethoscope on the mother’s abdomen. Eyelids are sealed, though they will soon open. The baby sleeps and wakes, and can be woken by loud noises or movement. Around 22 weeks Medical technology can enable babies born at this stage to survive outside the womb. There is a steady stream of reports of tiny premature babies being born near or prior to the legal time-limit for most abortions in Britain (24 weeks) and surviving. Kallie Rogers, one of the smallest babies ever to be born in the UK, weighed only 12 ounces (340g) when she was born 12 weeks premature in 1998. The smallest baby ever to have survived is thought to be Ambika Marula, born in 1998 in the United States. She was three months premature and weighed just over 11 ounces when doctors delivered her at Shady Grove Advent Hospital near Washington, DC. The youngest surviving premature baby according to the Guinness Book of Records is James Gill of Canada who was born after 22 weeks weighing 624 grams5. Babies born at 23 weeks have a 17 per cent chance
of survival 24 weeks The baby weighs about 780 grams and measures about 280 mm (11 inches) from head to toe. 24 weeks is the gestational time limit for abortion in Britain under grounds C and D, as specified in the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 19906. There is no time limit on all other grounds. 32 weeks The eyes are open and can follow light filtering through the uterus. The baby regularly exercises all the muscles in the body. Birth At birth, forty-one generations of cell division will have taken place, leaving just another four generations before mature adulthood. In the womb, the lungs are collapsed with fluid inside them but, within a few minutes of being born, the baby must expand the lungs, get rid of the fluid, breathe in air and let out carbon dioxide. He or she cries for the first time. Pain and the unborn child We feel pain because:
The structures needed to sense and feel pain are present and working in the unborn child before 10 weeks gestation7. Sensory and motor nerves start to work at eight weeks8, when the nervous system is already extensive. The movements of unborn children at this stage are not all random but can be in response to stimuli. Nerves, which carry sensation from the skin to the spinal cord, develop by six or seven weeks9. By nine weeks gestation the baby will have some parts of the thalamus, an area at the base of the brain, which relays sensory messages to the cerebral cortex10. Research has suggested that the thalamus plays a more crucial role in consciousness and awareness than was previously thought11. It was believed12 that sensory functions were only in the cortex but research and clinical experience suggests that they can operate in other parts of the brain. Clinicians at the University of California’s Los Angeles Medical Center have observed13 that anencephalic infants, who have no cortex, can feel pain. Unborn babies react to stimuli in the same way as adults. If one presses a pin into the palm of an unborn child of only eight weeks gestation, the child will react by opening his or her mouth and moving the hand away14. 80% of neurologists who responded to a Daily Telegraph survey said that unborn babies should be given pain relief during abortions from the 11th week of pregnancy15. For scientists and doctors the question is not whether
the foetus can feel pain but when is the foetus first able to feel pain.
Recognition to the foetus' ability to feel pain is being attributed
to earlier and earlier stages in his/her development. In 1999 the British Journal of Obstetrics & Gynaecology stated: "Given the anatomical evidence, it is possible that the foetus can feel pain from 20 weeks, and is caused distress by interventions from as early as 15 - 16 weeks." Foetal memory One argument that has been used to deny the humanity of unborn children is that they are not conscious because they have no memory17. The absence of myelin in the large nerve tracts of children under two has been shown to slow down the conduction of nerve impulses but does not prevent them from passing18. Mr Stephen Evans of Keele University has reported that an unborn baby can recognise tunes played to his or her mother as early as the 20th week of pregnancy, before the cerebral cortex is fully functional. Mr Evans told the 1998 annual meeting of the British Psychological Society about 10 pregnant women who played tapes of unusual folk music on each of the seven days from the 20th to the 21st week of pregnancy, and then repeated the process during the 31st week of pregnancy. Two or three weeks after birth, the 10 babies were played three pieces of music, two of which had been on the tape played by their mothers during pregnancy. Independent observers noted that the babies reduced their kicking during the two songs that had been on the tape, showing that they remembered and recognised the tunes19. Professor Hepper, professor of psychology at Queen’s University Belfast, found that unborn babies learn to identify their mother’s smell by drinking the amniotic fluid. Women who change their diet during pregnancy consequently find it more difficult to establish breast-feeding. In The Secret Life of the Unborn Child20 (written with John Kelly), Dr Thomas Verny posits the theory that oxytocin, a hormone which controls the rate of labour contractions and floods a child’s system at the time of birth, causes memories of life inside the womb to slip from conscious recall. Research has shown that oxytocin in large quantities produces amnesia in laboratory animals and the same effect would be expected on young babies. The Double Standard Societies like Britain, which allow legal abortions maintain a double standard. Babies that are wanted are given all the care they need both in the womb, through recommendations to take folic acid and iron and not to smoke or drink, and if they are born premature. At the same time, babies that are unwanted are routinely aborted. 1 Based on the 1978 Warnock report 'A Way of Life' The Society for the Protection of Unborn Children March 2002 
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Conception
Around
18 days