"This book should be read by anyone involved in birth work, and in future oriented scientific disciplines, anyone working on sustainable development goals, resilience, and planetary boundaries. It is an essential read for explorers of the future and people necessitating transdisciplinary science to explore solutions for our planetary crises … His writing is clear and organized, the chapters can be very short, his argumentation is persuasive and can seem disconnected at times until the connection is found; we enter the brain of a great systems thinker … Michel Odent's scientifically evidenced linkages between seemingly disconnected events grows our understanding of interconnectedness; a key quality for the survival of humanity."
At a global scale, love hormones are now redundant in the critical period surrounding birth ... reasons for questions?
Between 1970 and 1990, in many parts of the world, the rates of caesareans escalated from roughly 5% to roughly 25%. During this short phase of history, the father's participation became routine. Is there a link between these facts?
Health care systems are on the way to collapsing. Should we go on focusing on the preventive and curative treatments of particular diseases or should we give a greater importance to the way our basic adaptive systems, involved in what we commonly call health, reach a high degree of maturity?
These examples are sufficient to illustrate the "neo-Socratic attitude" of the author. Our contemporaries are constantly dealing with unprecedented situations. Question marks, therefore, can symbolise the current phase of our history. Throughout this book, radically new situations are analysed, before appropriate questions are phrased.
At a time when people commonly debate on the long-term effects of human activities without considering the probable transformations of Homo, one cannot avoid a preliminary question: How to reach an audience made up of female and male open-minded people who are turned towards the future but have not yet realised that the important period surrounding birth has been radically transformed during the past decades?
In the age of cultural blindness related to overspecialization, The Future of Homo is also a training tool to think across boundaries.
Related Link(s)
Sample Chapter(s)
Introduction
Chapter 1: The Broken Mirror
https://doi.org/10.1142/9789811206818_fmatter
The following sections are included:
https://doi.org/10.1142/9789811206818_0001
In the age of cultural blindness related to overspecialisation and information overload, we accumulate reasons to focus on boundaries between perspectives. For example, the concept of “physiological birth preparation”, which is outside the dominant perspectives, hardly attracts any attention. We use it to refer to a short period that is not yet established labour, and during which fast physiological changes are taking place. It is easy to emphasise the importance of the topic and to phrase urgent questions at a time when labour induction, pre-labour caesarean section, and many aspects of modern lifestyle are frequent and powerful interferences. This example is the point of departure of a book that should not be classified as medical. One of our objectives is to emphasise that childbirth and specifically human diseases are obligatory topics to explore the nature of Homo. We use interdisciplinary perspectives to raise questions about the future of our species and the limits of human adaptability. We constantly refer to “Homo”, because pure Sapiens do not exist: we are all hybrids.
https://doi.org/10.1142/9789811206818_0002
Until now, studies of birth physiology among humans were based on interpretations of difficulties. This is why the comparative importance of mechanical factors has been overestimated by theoreticians. We should first interpret the well-known fact that, occasionally, women who are not special from a morphological perspective can give birth easily and quickly, while others need medical intervention after days of hard labour. This enormous discrepancy leads us to understand that birth physiology is first and foremost a chapter of brain physiology. It is essential to realise that the part of the brain that has reached an extremely high level of development in our species — the “new brain” or neocortex — does not always play the role of a tool at the service of vital physiological functions. On the contrary, in some particular situations, it can inhibit and weaken such functions. It is as if the tool may become the master. The main objective of this chapter is to popularise the concept of neocortical inhibition. A reduced self-control, as an effect of a reduced neocortical activity, appears as the main factor that makes human birth possible. When this solution found by nature is understood, it becomes easy to analyse and summarise the basic needs of a labouring woman: she needs to feel protected against all possible neocortical stimulations. The keyword is protection. The main stimulants of neocortical activity are well-known: language, light, and all attention-enhancing situations.
https://doi.org/10.1142/9789811206818_0003
When the resistance to assimilating and popularising the concept of neocortical inhibition is overcome, it will be easier to go a step further and interpret some of the physiological maternal changes in late pregnancy. At the end of their pregnancies, many women claim that they are not as mentally sharp as usual (memory loss, poor concentration, renewed topics of interest, reduced and reoriented needs for socialisation). This deep-rooted empirical knowledge is now convincingly supported by brain imaging techniques, particularly those looking at gradual reductions in grey matter volumes in areas that play a key role in sociability. It is as if the need for privacy is already increasing before the labour starts. We must also give a great importance to the rising rates of melatonin (the “darkness hormone”) during the pre-birth phase, since its release tends to reduce neocortical activity. Today, everybody has heard about oxytocin. In the near future, everybody will be aware of the relationship between oxytocin and the darkness hormone.
https://doi.org/10.1142/9789811206818_0004
After presenting the concept of neocortical inhibition as a key to understanding the main particularities of human birth, we must raise questions about how the sensory functions connecting the brain and the environment work during the perinatal period, including the phase of preparation leading up to childbirth. There are several reasons to focus on the sense of sight. The first one is that melatonin, the “darkness hormone”, appears today as synergetic with oxytocin in the brain and in the uterus as well. The second reason is that we are at a turning point in the history of artificial light. Until now incandescence had been the source of visible light. We are suddenly entering a new era, with the advent of LEDs (Light Emitting Diodes), based on the emission from semiconductors. From a practical perspective, the important point is that this new source of light has a powerful inhibitory effect on melatonin release, because it is rich in the blue part of the spectrum.
https://doi.org/10.1142/9789811206818_0005
Today, in many countries, about one quarter of human beings are born after labour induction. We can offer several interpretations for the high incidence of this medical procedure. The first one is that, until now, it has not been understood that labour induction is a way to shorten a probably crucial phase of human life. The second reason is that the dominant practices may be considered justified by the results of studies that exclusively use short term criteria. We must add that, in the case of prolonged pregnancy, it is commonplace to decide to induce labour without considering other factors than the time spent by the baby in the womb. It would be more rational to focus on placental functions. As long as placental functions are not declining, the need for action is disputable. From now on, it should be a major preoccupation among epidemiologists to explore the long-term consequences of being born after an interrupted phase of birth preparation.
https://doi.org/10.1142/9789811206818_0006
Birth by caesarean before labour starts may be presented as a quasi-experimental association of an interrupted phase of birth preparation, foetal stress deprivation and microbial deprivation. On the day when the phase of physiological birth preparation is topical, and when the particularities of babies born in states of stress deprivation and microbial deprivation are studied in depth, there will probably be an accumulation of new reasons to avoid whenever it is possible the practice of pre-labour caesareans. If we add that, for obvious reasons, caesareans performed in a context of real emergency are associated with comparatively poor outcomes, there is a future for the concept of “in-labour non-emergency caesareans”.
https://doi.org/10.1142/9789811206818_0007
Since this pregnancy disease is usually considered specific to Homo, it is an obligatory topic for all students of human nature. One of the objectives of this chapter is to illustrate the concept of an interdisciplinary perspective.
The phase of birth preparation may be altered by pathological conditions, particularly eclampsia. Since authentic eclampsia (with convulsions) has become rare in developed countries (even before the age of medicalised prevention), the focus is usually on “preeclampsia” and the topics of interest are dominated by placental implantation. To shed light on several puzzling aspects of eclampsia, we should first consider fluctuations in the prevalence of the disease and emphasise that the orders of magnitude are not the same in poor populations with cereal based diets compared to a high standard of living. Furthermore, we suggest that eclampsia should be studied in the framework of maternal-foetal conflicts. The nature and the expression of these conflicts among different species of mammals depend on the nutritional priorities during the early phase of development. Among humans, it appears that the priority is to satisfy the nutritional needs of the developing brain.
Considerations about nutritional needs suggest questions about the prevalence of specifically human diseases before and after the advent of agriculture.
https://doi.org/10.1142/9789811206818_0008
Many islands and coastal areas of the Palaeolithic period are now immersed as an effect of significant fluctuations of sea levels. This may explain a tendency to underestimate the proportion of humans who were living on the land–sea interface before the “Neolithic revolution”, since their fossils will never be easily found. It is to a great extent by seafaring that our ancestors populated the planet. At a time when a new understanding of human nature cannot be ignored, and after raising questions inspired by the prevalence of pathological conditions, such as eclampsia, it appears necessary to synthesise available data about “Homo navigator”. We provide reasons to focus on the colonisation of the Mediterranean basin and the Pacific Rim. We also provide reasons to raise questions about the mysterious spatial skills of long-distance migrants, whether they are birds or humans.
https://doi.org/10.1142/9789811206818_0009
After providing reasons to conjecture that what happens during the phase of birth preparation might have lifelong consequences, we must emphasise the need for a new generation of epidemiological studies. This need appears clearly when looking at the contents of the “Primal Health Research Database”. Since 1986, we have been collecting published epidemiological studies that explore correlations between “the primal period” and what happens later on in life in terms of health and personality trait (www.primalhealthresearch.com). The “primal period” starts at conception and is over around the first birthday. It may be presented as the phase of life when our basic adaptive systems — those involved in what we commonly call health — are reaching a high degree of maturity. The point is that, according to the phase of history and the background of those who explore the database, there is a tendency to focus on one of the three components of the primal period (foetal life, the birth itself, or the year following birth) and to ignore the periods of transition, including the phase of birth preparation.
https://doi.org/10.1142/9789811206818_0010
Since the epidemiological perspective appears necessary to evaluate the importance of the phase of birth preparation, we must wonder what kinds of studies are feasible in the foreseeable future. There are several reasons why we chose the issue of sexual orientation as an example. The first reason is that research tools have confirmed the importance of genetic factors: we therefore need to know about critical periods for gene–environment interaction. A second reason is that we will not have to wait many decades before identifying such personality traits as sexual orientation. We must also consider what is already known about the development of brain structures. For example, the end of foetal life is a phase of fast development of the hypothalamus and the structure of this part of the brain is not the same among heterosexual and homosexual men. The interpretation of relevant epidemiological studies will be facilitated if the common points and the differences between labour induction and pre-labour caesarean sections are simultaneously considered. These two medical interventions shorten the phase of birth preparation, but the first one is usually associated with prolonged pharmacological assistance while the second one is associated with stress deprivation. Whenever both of them appear correlated with the same pathological conditions or personality traits, the cause and effect relationship is highly plausible.
https://doi.org/10.1142/9789811206818_0011
After emphasising the need for a new generation of epidemiological studies and considering their feasibility, we must try to identify the priorities. It is possible if we bear in mind the mysterious turmoil regarding the comparative prevalence of many kinds of pathological conditions and personality traits among young generations born after the turning point in the history of childbirth. To illustrate the magnitude and the diversity of the questions that are suddenly emerging, we offer one example in the field of risk factors for well-defined frequent diseases (shingles), one example in the field of intellectual abilities (evolution of intellectual quotient) and one example related to “emotional health” (capacity for empathy). Meanwhile, one can imagine several scenarios. One of them would start with the sudden emergence of a new awareness leading to encourage cautious strategies before we know more. Another one would be to passively wait for hard data before reconsidering the dominant medical attitudes. If the second scenario prevails, there is a future for the sorcerer’s apprentice.
https://doi.org/10.1142/9789811206818_0012
Modes of communication in the period surrounding birth have been described but not scientifically investigated. This is the case of “motherese” (“baby talk”). Its universal characteristics lead us to conclude that it is associated with a reduced cultural conditioning and therefore a reduced neocortical control. This is also the case of lullabies, as universal variants of baby talk: an authentic lullaby is improvised at a time when the mother is still in a specific physiological state. Studies of the roots of the words reveal that in many languages the word that means “lullaby” is conveying the intention to calm down, while in other languages the focus is on the rocking movements. We enlarge the topic by presenting improvised and therefore authentic lullabies as prototypical forms of spontaneous creative behaviour. This is an opportunity to mention that, according to studies through brain imaging, musical improvisation is characterised by a reduced neocortical activity.
https://doi.org/10.1142/9789811206818_0013
After having introduced the concept of the “Scientification of Love”, I introduce the concept of the “Scientification of Transcendence”. Studies of emotional states that give access to another reality than space and time reality cannot be dissociated from studies of subjective experiences originally associated with episodes of human reproductive life: “foetus ejection reflex”, “milk ejection reflex”, and “sperm ejection reflex”.
Not only from physiological perspectives, but also from historical perspectives, human reproduction and transcendent emotional states are indissociable topics. They can be looked at in the framework of the domination of nature that started about ten millennia ago and that includes the domestication of plants and animals, and also a certain degree of domestication of Homo.
This chapter provides an opportunity to shed new light on the functions of emotions.
https://doi.org/10.1142/9789811206818_0014
After contrasting language absorption and language learning, we are in a position to rephrase questions about the development of analytic thinking versus “synthesising thinking”. These are essential questions in the age of overspecialisation and fast evolution of spoken and written languages.
https://doi.org/10.1142/9789811206818_0015
When studying the perinatal period as a critical phase of individual development, we are constantly turned towards the future. We cannot ignore futurology as an emerging scientific discipline. After considering established knowledge regarding the past and the present, futurologists explore the future. Their keywords are extrapolation, projection, probability, anticipation and plausibility. There are already future-oriented scientific disciplines such as demography, climatology and geology (with new concepts such as “Great acceleration” and “Anthropocene”). In spite of precise and easily summarised definitions, the frontier between futurology and science fiction remains blurred and needs to be clarified. It is notable that, until now, futurologists have considered the effects of human actions without raising useful questions about probable transformations of Homo. One cannot pronounce on the future of futurology without analysing this paradox.
https://doi.org/10.1142/9789811206818_0016
Until recently, experts in evolution, including human evolution, were turned towards the past. They are suddenly invited to look towards the future. Several factors are at the root of the current paradigm shift. As long as the limits of the domination of nature by our species had not been perceived, the concepts of struggle for life survival of the fittest and “selfish genes” were more easily assimilated than concepts such as mutual aid, networking, synergy and symbiosis. Another factor is that modern medicine (particularly reproductive medicine including obstetrics) is neutralising the laws of natural selection, creating inevitable questions about the transformations of our species and the limits of human adaptability. Meanwhile, we are learning from emerging disciplines (such as bacteriology and epigenetics) that have the power to explain how acquired traits can be transmitted to the next generations. Because interpretations are available, it is becoming acceptable to study fast transformations of species induced by changes in lifestyle. Furthermore, since Homo is an eminently social primate, we cannot avoid questions related to the propensity to create working team. These questions lead to consider the evolution of the capacity for empathy, aggressiveness, social intelligence and morality. At the dawn of a new phase in the Lamarckian–Darwinian era, the term “evolution” must recover its original broad meaning, without being exclusively suggestive of one particular mechanism.
https://doi.org/10.1142/9789811206818_0017
Psychoanalysis and regressive therapies have reinforced the “know thyself” aphorism. Recent scientific advances, on the other hand, are opening the way to goal-oriented therapies based on the keyword “hope”. This chapter provides an opportunity to repetitively conclude that modern human beings are “condemned” to develop and cultivate their prospective way of thinking.
Questions about the future of psychotherapies cannot be separated from questions inspired by emerging branches of medicine, such as immuno-psychiatry.
https://doi.org/10.1142/9789811206818_0018
After evaluating the side effects of overspecialisation, we must wonder how interdisciplinary perspectives can be facilitated. We suggest that language is a possible target in the immediate future. Subcultures have always spoken in codes. Jargon has recently met with a dramatic renewal. Specialists and subcultures have always used ingroup languages that are not understood outside a particular context. Jargon has recently met with a dramatic renewal. We focus on one kind of jargon that has developed at a high speed within the past decades: it is based on the use of abbreviations. After presenting typical examples, we reach the conclusion that the main unanticipated and paradoxical effect of the overuse of this kind of language is to impair communication, reinforcing ingroup–outgroup barriers. We suggest the need for an “anti-abbreviation activism”.
https://doi.org/10.1142/9789811206818_0019
Modern humans need to urgently develop their capacity for long-term thinking. After offering reasons for optimism and reasons for pessimism, we raise questions about the nature and the limits of prospective thinking. We eventually try to evaluate the importance of cultural conditioning.
https://doi.org/10.1142/9789811206818_0020
In the near future, researchers will have at their disposal a reliable tool to compare chronological age and physiological age. Thanks to “biological clocks” such as those using epigenetic markers or telomere length, it should become possible to explore the possible long-term non-specific effects on health of frequent 21st century interferences in the “primal period”. Medicalised conception, ultrasound exposure during embryonic life and foetal life, labour induction, pre-labour caesarean sections, exposure to high concentrations of synthetic oxytocin during the birth process, and multiple vaccinations in early infancy are presented as typical examples of new interferences.
https://doi.org/10.1142/9789811206818_0021
It is easy to explain that today, where childbirth is concerned, we have reached the limits of the domination of nature. In the age of pharmacological substitutes for natural hormones and safe caesarean sections, only an insignificant number of women, at a global scale, still give birth to babies and placentas thanks to the release of what is now considered a cocktail of hormones of love. Rendering love hormones useless for having babies is a turning point in the history of our species. If the limits of human adaptibility have been reached, the only valuable strategy is to take another direction. After combining what we can learn from physiological perspectives, particularly the concept of reduced self-control as an effect of reduced neocortical activity, what we know about non-socialised childbirth in pre-agricultural societies, and what I have learned as a practitioner, I conclude that it is urgent to challenge thousands of years of cultural conditioning and to consider how and to what extent childbirth can be “desocialised”. Can we imagine such a paradigm upheaval so that the need for privacy is recognised? Meanwhile, the development of hypno-suggestive methods in childbirth is justified, even inescapable, as an adaptation to socialised birth.
https://doi.org/10.1142/9789811206818_0022
Before the advent of agriculture and animal husbandry (the “Neolithic crisis”), a human group was a tribe. After that crisis, there have been villages, towns, cities, provinces, states, nations, and international unions. We have suddenly reached an extreme order of magnitude with the concept of “globalisation”. From now on, one cannot avoid questions such as: what will happen, in terms of cultural evolution, when (nearly) all human beings are born by caesarean? Can futurologists become evolutionary thinkers? Can evolutionary biologists become futurologists?
https://doi.org/10.1142/9789811206818_bmatter
The following section is included:
"The Future of Homo contains tools, scientific updates and vital questions which could be able to create a substantialising turning point in humanity's global birth, health crisis, the increasing respectfulness crisis with Earth's ecosystem and in humanity's dramatic species-transformation crisis."
"A brilliant masterpiece that provokes unexpected questions. Michel Odent leaves no stones unturned, with sharp precision does he target highly important subjects, Backed by solid research Dr Odent takes us on a journey through time, from hundreds of thousands of years in the past, to the distant future. From space elevators to language learned in the womb. Most of all the book leads to discussions and leaves us the readers to continue the explorations and research forward. The Future of Homo is a masterpiece. A highly important work for all of humanity."
"This book should be read by anyone involved in birth work, and in future oriented scientific disciplines, anyone working on sustainable development goals, resilience, and planetary boundaries. It is an essential read for explorers of the future and people necessitating transdisciplinary science to explore solutions for our planetary crises … His writing is clear and organized, the chapters can be very short, his argumentation is persuasive and can seem disconnected at times until the connection is found; we enter the brain of a great systems thinker … Michel Odent's scientifically evidenced linkages between seemingly disconnected events grows our understanding of interconnectedness; a key quality for the survival of humanity."
Michel Odent, MD, has been in charge of the surgical unit and the maternity unit at the Pithiviers (France) state hospital (1962–1985). During many years he has been the only doctor in charge of about 1000 births a year. He is the founder of the Primal Health Research Centre (London). He is the author of the first article in the medical literature about the initiation of lactation during the hour following birth (1977), of the first article about the use of birthing pools (Lancet 1983), and of the first article applying the 'Gate Control Theory of Pain' to obstetrics (1975). He created the Primal Health Research database (www.primalhealthresearch.com). He has been a member of the Professional Advisory Board of La Leche League International for about 40 years. Author of 15 books published in 23 languages. His latest book is titled "The Future of Homo" (World Scientific 2019)
Michel Odent is Visiting Professor at the Odessa National Medical University and Doctor Honoris Causa of the University of Brasilia.
Sample Chapter(s)
Introduction
Chapter 1: The Broken Mirror