I studied brain cells for years as a neuroscientist. Then my own pregnancy changed everything
As a neuroscientist at Boston University, I spent years studying how brain cells form connections. Experiencing my first pregnancy, however, revealed to me the most astonishing neurological story of all: how, in just nine months, a single cell can become a baby with developing senses, a capacity to remember, and a growing brain prepared for life.
I began researching developmental neuroscience with new eyes, filled with awe at the hidden complexity of life in the womb. That journey inspired me to create the Voyage of Life, a newly updated, interactive website that illustrates vivid, life-affirming, and medically accurate truths — and images — of unborn human development in the womb.
From a lone cell unfolds a process of breathtaking complexity: the creation of a fully formed human body. That reality has never stopped astounding me. As a mother of five, I have marveled that another human could coexist within my body and that God could have a sovereign plan for each of us.
In an age when artificial intelligence may surpass us in many endeavors, fetal development strikes me as an irreplaceable biological wonder. Everyone began this way. Every teacher, mechanic, nurse, athlete, and neighbor began as a single cell and, over the course of nine months, developed into a newborn baby.
Studying fetal development is both fascinating and morally clarifying. At 21 weeks, some babies have survived outside the womb, and by 22 weeks, about one quarter do. The more we understand fetal development, the harder it becomes to treat the unborn as abstractions. They are not potential life, but human lives with potential, already unfolding in ways that are scientifically observable and awe-inspiring.
The science of fetal development only deepens that sense of wonder. By about seven and a half weeks’ gestation, a baby moves after a light touch to the mouth. By 10 weeks, that little one may already show a preference for the right or left hand. By 19 weeks, the baby begins responding to sound. At 26 weeks, the baby is drawn to face-like patterns. By 34 weeks, babies respond differently to their mother’s voice than to another woman’s voice. Before birth, unborn babies are not inert or isolated. They are learning the rhythms, sounds, tastes, and sensations of the world that is waiting for them.
Each detail is delightful. Take taste as an example. Most of us have never paused to wonder what amniotic fluid tastes like, but before any of us sat in a high chair, we spent months swallowing it. When a mother eats a meal, the flavors from that meal reach the amniotic fluid soon afterward. By 34 weeks’ gestation, the baby will make happier faces when sweet flavors reach the amniotic fluid, and frown for bitter flavors. The unborn child also swallows more amniotic fluid when it’s sweet and less when it’s bitter. Even more remarkably, the flavors encountered in the womb can shape later food preferences when a child begins eating solids.
I saw a hint of that when I was pregnant with my oldest daughter. My husband and I went out for intensely spicy Thai food. The curry I ate was kick-boxing-with-jalapeños spicy. About 20 minutes into the meal, my daughter began thrashing inside of me with a level of determination I had never experienced before, launching what felt like a full routine of flips, kicks, and fetal karate moves. Her gymnastics continued for more than an hour. To this day, my preteen daughter refuses to eat anything spicy.
Motherhood made it impossible for me to think of the womb as passive. Science explains that prenatal life is active and responsive, and my pregnancies made that reality obvious. I saw glimpses of my children’s personalities before they were born. My third child sucked his index and middle fingers in almost every ultrasound picture we saw, and he did so after birth as well. Another would stop kicking as soon as someone placed their hands on my belly. He remains my shyest kid to this day.
While I have been blessed with five living kids, I have lost two to miscarriage. As a pro-life scientist, I later discovered the amazing truth that my lost babies’ cells remain in my body for years, a phenomenon called fetal microchimerism. In fact, those babies’ cells may have even passed to my subsequent children. These lasting biological bonds comforted me, because I knew this small life was still present in a quiet, tangible way.
This upcoming Mother’s Day, I am especially grateful for the awe-inspiring privilege of participating in God’s work of creating new life. Nothing else I do will have such guaranteed eternal significance. Studying fetal development gave me information, but pregnancy gave me understanding.
Wonder matters. Science matters. And both can deepen our reverence for the smallest members of the human family.
Katrina Furth, Ph.D. is an associate scholar at Charlotte Lozier Institute and lead researcher and writer for Voyage of Life.
