Origins

　　是什麼導致我們變成現在這個樣子？有人說是遺傳，有人說是環境造的。但我們的許多個人特質，包括健康、智能、脾氣等，會不會在媽媽肚子裡時，就已經決定了呢？

　　胎源學以大膽的新觀點看待懷孕，認為懷孕是孩子一生健康、能力和幸福的重要起點。作者深入實驗室、訪問世界各地的專家、檢閱豐富的歷史文獻，並挖掘出許多令人驚嘆的故事，如二次大戰期間納粹包圍荷蘭，這雖已是陳年往事，但幾十年後的現在，於這段期間成孕的人卻還在承受其後果；遇上911恐怖攻擊的孕婦，竟把她們的創傷傳遞給了腹中的孩子；實驗室在偶然的狀況下，發現一種家庭常用的化學物質居然會傷害胎兒發育；透過研究百年前的一場全國性流感，發現產前環境太差竟會讓個人和社會付出很高的代價。

　　另外，還有一些驚人的研究發現：只要暴露於毒物一次，傷害就可能流傳數代；糖尿病、心臟病、精神疾病等諸多疾病的病源，竟然可能源於子宮。

　　孕婦對於腹中孩子的影響力，遠比我們知道的強大與正面。懷孕本身就是大事－－它不只是個人健康的搖籃，也是公共衛生和社會平等的試金石。

　　What makes us the way we are?

　　Some say it’s the genes we inherit at conception. Others are sure it’s the environment we experience in childhood. But could it be that many of our individual characteristics—our health, our intelligence, our temperaments—are influenced by the conditions we encountered before birth? That’s the claim of an exciting and provocative field known as fetal origins. Over the past twenty years, scientists have been developing a radically new understanding of our very earliest experiences and how they exert lasting effects on us from infancy well into adulthood. Their research offers a bold new view of pregnancy as a crucial staging ground for our health, ability, and well-being throughout life. Author and journalist Annie Murphy Paul ventures into the laboratories of fetal researchers, interviews experts from around the world, and delves into the rich history of ideas about how we’re shaped before birth. She discovers dramatic stories: how individuals gestated during the Nazi siege of Holland in World War II are still feeling its consequences decades later; how pregnant women who experienced the 9/11 attacks passed their trauma on to their offspring in the womb; how a lab accident led to the discovery of a common household chemical that can harm the developing fetus; how the study of a century-old flu pandemic reveals the high personal and societal costs of poor prenatal experience. Origins also brings to light astonishing scientific findings: how a single exposure to an environmental toxin may produce damage that is passed on to multiple generations; how conditions as varied as diabetes, heart disease, and mental illness may get their start in utero; why the womb is medicine’s latest target for the promotion of lifelong health, from preventing cancer to reducing obesity. The fetus is not an inert being, but an active and dynamic creature, responding and adapting as it readies itself for life in the particular world it will enter. The pregnant woman is not merely a source of potential harm to her fetus, as she is so often reminded, but a source of influence on her future child that is far more powerful and positive than we ever knew. And pregnancy is not a nine-month wait for the big event of birth, but a momentous period unto itself, a cradle of individual strength and wellness and a crucible of public health and social equality.

　　With the intimacy of a personal memoir and the sweep of a scientific revolution, Origins presents a stunning new vision of our beginnings that will change the way you think about yourself, your children, and human nature itself.

　　★本書中譯版《9個月，孩子大不同：懷孕時，你可以做更多……》由天下文化出版。

作者簡介

安妮．墨菲．波兒Annie Murphy Paul

　　雜誌記者，同時也是作家，作品見諸《紐約時代雜誌》（The New York Times Magazine）、《頁岩》（Slate）、《發現雜誌》（Discover）和《美國最佳科學寫作》（The Best American Science Writing）等刊物，著有《個人崇拜》（The Cult of Personality），該書從文化面闡述人格測驗的歷史，也從科學面對人格測驗提出批判。

　　個人網站如下：www.anniemurphypaul.com或www.twitter.com/anniemurphypaul.

　　Annie Murphy Paul is a magazine journalist and book author who writes about the biological and social sciences. Born in Philadelphia, she graduated from Yale University and from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. A former senior editor at Psychology Today magazine, she was awarded the Rosalynn Carter Fellowship for Mental Health Journalism. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, the New York Times Book Review, Slate, Discover, Health, O: The Oprah Magazine, and many other publications. She is the author of The Cult of Personality: How Personality Tests Are Leading Us to Miseducate Our Children, Mismanage Our Companies, and Misunderstand Ourselves. An article based on Origins was selected for inclusion in the Best American Science Writing 2009.