How can a child's development be shaped before birth?

Posted on 8 April 2025 by Kirsty DunnVincent Reid

How can a child's development be shaped before birth?

Transcript, April 2025

Discussed by Kirsty Dunn and Vincent Reid

This work has been supported by the Future of Human Reproduction Programme, which has been funded by the Wellcome Trust under grant reference 222858/Z/21/Z. https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/future-of-human-reproduction/

Please note that this transcript has been edited for clarity and structure, while maintaining the tone and language of the original auto-generated content from Microsoft Teams.

To view the recording, please see here: How can a child's development be shaped before birth Recording - YouTube

Welcome
Introductions
Introduction to the Future of Human Reproduction research
Questions for the panel
Where are we with the research on ectogenesis?
What does the current research tell us about the safety and potential of ectogenesis?
Is ectogenesis being considered as a viable alternative?
Do babies prefer music they frequently heard in the womb?
How does sleep affect foetal development? Is there data on the impact of night shifts?
How does a parent's movement, tech use & nature affect a baby's development before birth?
What is your opinion on alcohol use in pregnancy?
What's important to focus on now?
Thank you and close.

Welcome

Zindzi Cresswell: Hello, and thank you very much for joining us for the third session of the Future of Human Reproduction Research Showcase series. Today, I'm joined by Kirsty and Vincent, who will be talking to us about how a child's development can be shaped before birth.

This is a recorded piece of content, and we are grateful to everyone who shared their questions with us in advance. In today’s session, we’ll start by hearing a little about each of our speakers and their research before moving on to the questions you’ve kindly submitted. The content will be shared soon after. This event is supported by the Wellcome Trust. In a moment, we’ll hear from Kirsty and Vincent, but in the meantime, thanks once again, and I’ll see you in the Q&A. Over to you, Kirsty.

Kirsty Dunn: Thanks, Zindzi. My name is Kirsty Dunn. I'm a lecturer in developmental psychology at Lancaster University and a co-investigator on the Future of Human Reproduction project.

Vincent Reid: My name is Vincent Reid. I'm a professor of psychology at Waikato University, and my specialist area is infant and foetal development.

Zindzi Cresswell: Great to have you here. Thank you very much. Vincent, did you want to start us off by telling us about your research?

Introductions

Vincent Reid: Sure. I'm a developmental psychologist, and for over 20 years, my research has focused on understanding the human infant. You might be thinking, Wait—this is supposed to be about things before birth! But over the course of my career, I realized that the methodologies we use to study infants—such as those related to brain development, sensory perception, and social or cognitive processes—could also be applied to understanding the human foetus. So, I began adapting these techniques to study foetal development, which has been my focus for nearly 10 years now.

The research in this field had not always been the most robust in terms of experimental methods. However, the techniques we use with infants offered new opportunities to explore foetal development in a more structured way. My research started with vision. We already know quite a bit about foetal auditory processing—what foetuses can and cannot hear in the uterus—but vision was considered a kind of last frontier. Many people believed it was impossible to study foetal visual perception, arguing that the womb is too dark for meaningful visual experiences.

In 2017, Kirsty and I conducted a study that was published showing that you can shine lights in certain shapes through to a foetus and observe changes in its behaviour. The foetus would track certain shapes more than others—demonstrating visual preferences similar to those found in newborn infants. Since then, I’ve been working to understand how much light actually reaches the foetus in the womb. This research began at Lancaster University and has continued at Waikato University since I moved here in 2019.

If you look at traditional developmental biology textbooks, they state that the uterus is a dark place, which is thought to be beneficial for foetal eye development. However, that assumption isn’t entirely accurate. A model published in 2011 suggested that more light enters the uterus than previously believed, but it was based on experiments using deceased chicken tissue—not living human tissue. So, my team has been working on more precise models using Monte Carlo simulations. We input detailed data on different tissue types—skin, adipose (fat), muscle, uterine wall, and amniotic fluid—then simulate how billions of photons interact with those tissues. Our findings suggest that if there are around two centimetres of adipose tissue, enough light gets through for the foetus to have some kind of visual experience.

To give a real-world comparison, the level of light inside the uterus is similar to civil twilight—the period after sunset but before full darkness, when it’s still bright enough to read a book. While a foetus’s visual system isn’t developed enough for reading, this suggests that they experience variations in light and dark before birth.

Zindzi Cresswell: Mm-hmm.

Vincent Reid: This raises interesting questions about how foetuses process light and what impact that might have on their development. For example, if a foetus understands that moving its hand in front of its eyes affects the light it perceives, this could contribute to early motor development, contingent responses, and even a rudimentary sense of body awareness. So, what began as a simple question about light in the uterus has led us to explore the psychology of the foetus in greater depth.

At the same time, Kirsty and I have been investigating other aspects of foetal vision. One of our PhD students, Jess Leov—now at the University of Essex—has conducted some elegant studies on this topic, which we’re about to publish. One key question we explored was whether foetuses show a preference for certain areas of their visual field, similar to newborns.

Newborns tend to have a more developed peripheral vision compared to central vision, meaning they are more responsive to movement in their peripheral field. We wanted to know whether foetuses show the same tendency.

To test this, we used lights to create moving stimuli and tracked foetal eye movements using ultrasound. By observing the lens inside the foetal eye socket, we could determine whether the foetus was following these movements. We found that foetuses in the third trimester responded more to stimuli in their peripheral vision than to those in the centre. This suggests that foetal visual processing already exhibits some of the same characteristics seen in newborns.

This kind of foundational research helps us understand the building blocks of human perception and development. It also ties into broader discussions about the prenatal environment and how it shapes early experiences—topics we’ll be discussing further today. So, that’s an overview of what we’ve been working on!

Cresswell, Zindzi

Thank you. That sounds so interesting. And I am going to put a pun in there about shining a light on your research so far. I can't resist! But so, so interesting. And it'd be great to hear from you, Kirsty, just to dig in a little deeper into what Vincent touched upon. We're learning about this basic scientific research—what are the implications? If the foetus is engaging in that way, what does that mean for the environment they're in and how it influences them? Please, tell us about your research.

Dunn, Kirsty

Yeah. My research has not been looking at whether foetuses are reading in the womb or not. I've been focusing more on auditory processing. I began working in psychology, looking at how we develop our perceptual, social, and cognitive skills, and how those three things build on each other during infancy. Then I found out about Vincent’s grant, where he was beginning to look at visual development in the womb, and I thought, "That sounds awesome—I’d like to work on that." So I interviewed, and thankfully, I got to work on the grant.

I began working with Vincent, trying to figure out how we could adapt our newborn methodologies to use a prenatal sample in the womb so we could actually map these trajectories of development from before to after birth. The question being—can we really continue to take what we see that babies can do at birth as evidence of genetic underpinnings, or is there some environmental influence beforehand? And does that matter?

Following on from Vincent’s work on visual tracking, I began looking at responses to different social sounds and speech sounds. For example, newborn babies prefer to listen to infant-directed speech over adult-directed speech. Why is that? It's very helpful for language learning—it has exaggerated pitch, it's loud, and there are clear gaps between words. But do babies pay attention for that reason, or is it just more interesting than adult-directed speech?

We've been running studies with foetuses at 34 weeks, examining physiological responses like heart rate changes. Just like any other muscle, when we use our brain, it requires changes in blood flow, which in turn affects heart rate. We've also looked at behaviours such as mouth movements and general movements in response to different types of speech.

Our findings show that six weeks before birth, foetuses already exhibit responses to the prosody of language. At this point, they don’t yet show a preference for infant-directed over adult-directed speech, which suggests this is not purely genetically driven. Something is influencing their ability between six weeks before birth and birth. However, what we do see is a dramatic difference in how they respond to infant-directed speech played backwards. When the prosody of the language they’ve been listening to changes, their attention systems are more aroused.

This shows that foetuses are listening to language before birth, processing it, and differentiating between what’s familiar and what’s new. As Vincent mentioned, these are the building blocks for understanding what’s happening in late gestation—what foetuses are attending to, how it changes their behaviour, and why we can’t simply assume that everything we see at birth is purely genetic.

Introduction to Future of Human Reproduction research

That’s the work I’ve been doing with Vincent. Then, I was lucky enough to get involved in the Future of Human Reproduction grant. It’s a very different kind of project for me—there’s no experimental work, just deep thinking. I get that itch to design a study! But this project, funded by the Wellcome Trust, brings together an interdisciplinary team, including experts from design, English literature, law, philosophy, and bioethics, along with myself from psychology. We’re exploring conceptual and ethical issues surrounding emerging reproductive technologies. How might these technologies change the way society works? What ethical questions do we need to ask?

We’ve been focusing on three main technologies: genome editing (modifying DNA sequences), in vitro gametogenesis (creating sperm and egg cells from other cells like blood or skin), and, most relevant to today’s discussion, ectogenesis—the partial or full gestation of a foetus in an artificial environment, sometimes called an artificial womb.

Our key question as psychologists is: if we’re going to be gestating a foetus in an artificial womb, but we don’t yet fully understand how the natural womb environment influences development, what kind of environment should we create?

Cresswell, Zindzi

That’s really helpful. Thank you for introducing your research. Both yours and Vincent’s work sounds so interesting—I feel like we could have an entire series of webinars just on these topics. Watch this space!

Vincent Reid

Let’s do that.

Cresswell, Zindzi

And thank you for the introduction to the Future of Human Reproduction research. Many of the questions we received in advance were about this topic. Before we move on to the questions, I just want to pause and ask—do either of you have anything else you want to share? We have quite a few questions to dive into, but what’s the key takeaway so far?

Vincent Reid

Looking at the kinds of questions we’re likely to be asked, I think the key takeaways will come out in that discussion. Kirsty mentioned that there’s still a huge amount we don’t know. That’s one of the reasons I moved into this field from infancy research—there are so many assumptions, many of them incorrect, and so many things we haven’t even begun to investigate. I expect some of those issues will emerge as we go through the questions.

Questions for the panel

Cresswell, Zindzi

Excellent. In that case, let’s dive in.

For everyone listening, we’ve gathered questions over the past few weeks through social media, email, and from our networks. If you have further questions after this webinar, please reach out to the Future of Human Reproduction team—I’ll share our email address on the final slide.

We’ve grouped the questions into themes. First, we’ll discuss technology and the state of play. Then, we’ll move on to current reproductive technologies before addressing the question: does the environment matter?

Where are we with the research on ectogenesis?

So, to begin: where are we with research on ectogenesis? Kirsty, since you just introduced the Future of Human Reproduction research, would you like to take this one?

Dunn, Kirsty

Sure. Just to highlight—Vincent and I aren’t the scientists working directly on ectogenesis; that’s more within the medical field. Updates on this research can be sporadic, so I don’t have the absolute latest, but here’s where things stand.

There are three main research teams—one in Philadelphia, one in Japan, and one in the Netherlands. They’re taking two different approaches, mostly focusing on partial ectogenesis rather than full ectogenesis.

The goal is to assist extremely premature infants—those born too early for neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) to support. This technology could step in to bridge that gap and improve survival rates.

There are two main approaches:

1. ECMO-based approach – Similar to current NICU care but more advanced. The foetus is intubated, with breathing and blood flow regulated externally.

2. Bio-bag approach – The foetus is immersed in a fluid-filled bag that mimics the womb environment. The pressure keeps the lungs inflated, and the fluid is oxygen-rich, more closely resembling natural gestation.

So far, testing has primarily involved lambs. Researchers have successfully transferred foetal lambs from the womb into bio-bags, where they have continued to develop healthily. The goal isn’t to gestate a foetus in a pod from conception, but to support those born too early for current medical care. The Netherlands group isn’t using animal models; they’re working with simulations and theoretical models to determine the best approaches.

As for moving from animal research to human trials, it’s complicated. Foetal lambs are larger than human foetuses, with bigger blood vessels, so transitioning to human physiology presents challenges. It’s not just a case of using smaller tubes—there are complex anatomical differences to consider. However, discussions are happening. In September 2023, the FDA held meetings to discuss the ethical considerations of moving toward human testing. So while we’re not there yet, we are at a point where serious conversations are happening.

What else does this, you know, partial ectogenesis system, whatever that looks like, need in terms of the environment before we can move forward with psychological development, not just health development?

Zindzi Cresswell: So what I’m hearing is that it’s really important to have these conversations and do this psychological research now because we're still quite uncertain about when this scientific research might come into play in the real world. The timeline is undefined. From my own research, some people think it could be 10 or 20 years, but others are hesitant to give a timeline at all.

Kirsty Dunn: Oh yeah, I mean, this is the thing. You look at some predictions, and maybe 20 years sounds like a long time, but in terms of how long it takes to run prenatal studies and learn more about fetal development, I mean, instinct tells you how long it can take for that to happen. There’s a lot of work to do.

What does the current research tell us about the safety and potential of ectogenesis?

Zindzi Cresswell: Actually, Vincent, if I may, I’d love to hear a bit from you on the safety and effectiveness side. Building on what Kirsty’s described about current research on fetal development, what does it tell us about the safety and potential of ectogenesis? Can it be made as safe and effective as possible? What are your thoughts?

Vincent Reid: That’s a really good question, Zindzi. What we know about fetuses ultimately is that there’s still a lot we don’t know. The issue here is that much of the biological literature suggests that, in the auditory domain, the kinds of sounds fetuses hear are similar to those outside the womb but are quieter, and certain frequencies are muted. A fetus doesn’t experience the auditory environment in the same way as we do in the outside world. Much of this research, ironically, is based on sheep studies. Researchers assumed that what was true for sheep would be true for humans. This was mostly based on putting microphones inside sheep in the 50s and 60s and extrapolating from there. Of course, it’s challenging to do similar research with humans because inserting foreign objects for research purposes is always ethically difficult. For vision, the environment is very dark, but there is some light.

The thing I’ve been exploring recently is the video of a lamb in a partial ectogenesis situation. You can see it online. What strikes me about the bio-bag is that it’s made of clear plastic, and you can see the lamb's eyes responding to visual stimuli. The question I have is: Are these parameters correct? Will they work? Potentially, there could be unintended consequences related to sensory development. It’s not just the auditory system, and it’s not only visual information processing. The vestibular system, for example, plays a big role in balance. Humans aren’t as naturally good at balance as four-legged animals are. A lamb, for instance, can stand and move around soon after birth, whereas humans take much longer to get organized in terms of motor function. So, the experience of moving around, hearing sounds, or feeling physical sensations inside the womb helps develop those sensory processes. But in an ectogenesis scenario, many of those experiences are removed or not fully replicated. This could be crucial for human development.

So, how do we make it as safe and effective as possible? We need to understand how those environmental factors integrate with the nervous system of the fetus. This is essential for optimal development, and we need to figure out those parameters before we can come to any conclusions.

Zindzi Cresswell: And we’re still learning about that, still developing that.

Vincent Reid: Absolutely. In fact, I’d argue that we’re just at the beginning, rather than being at a point where we can say, "Yes, let’s implement partial ectogenesis with humans tomorrow." As Kirsty pointed out, this kind of research takes years, not months. And that’s just one aspect of understanding one sensory system. There are many areas that haven’t been explored in detail yet. More researchers need to get involved. It can’t just be us. Plus, we need to study all the systems, so it’s essential that more people work in this field.

Is ectogenesis being considered as a viable alternative?

Zindzi Cresswell: And I’m aware that there was a direct question from the audience, so forgive me for skipping ahead. You’ve both mentioned that more research is needed, but is this technology being considered a viable option? Kirsty, would you like to speak to that as well? The people you’ve been working with, do they see this as a possible development?

Kirsty Dunn: Yeah, I can speak to that. There have been surveys and various research projects done with clinicians to see how they feel about this technology. And of course, it’s the only technology being developed to support preterm development. The NICU ward itself is a piece of technology that improves the chances for preterm infants.

Zindzi Cresswell: Hmm.

Kirsty Dunn: All of the questions we’re asking and the research we’re doing need to feed into NICU wards as well. Preterm babies will have a percentage that go on to experience cognitive difficulties or delays, but we still don’t know if that’s because they were always going to have those issues because they were born early, or if something about the NICU environment isn’t optimal for that gestational age.

Zindzi Cresswell: Mm hmm.

Kirsty Dunn: There needs to be medical intervention. Some families may have other children or less ability to support those infants, and even in the NICU, there’s not much speech or interaction, which affects the auditory and speech development of preterm infants. So, yes, this has been seen as a viable option.

Zindzi Cresswell: Mm hmm.

Kirsty Dunn: The disagreement among healthcare professionals is about when it would be viable. Right now, between 22 and 24 weeks, most clinicians agree that some sort of intervention is viable. However, technological advances in things like lung development support have improved outcomes for preterm infants. About 50% of preterm babies are viable at 22 weeks, but there are still challenges about when clinicians feel it should be viable. So, yes, it’s a viable option in the long term.

Zindzi Cresswell: So, it could work, but there’s also the question of when it should be used. If I may, I’d like to take a slight liberty and skip forward a bit because some of the questions from the audience around the environment are important to address now. We’ve started talking about it in detail. I’ll read out some of the questions. One question asks if babies prefer music. Speaking to the auditory research: do babies prefer music they frequently hear in the womb? And does this preference extend into later life? Another question asks about the impact of sleep on fetal development—do we have any data on that, and does shift work have an impact? I’ll leave these questions here for now, and then we can go back to others. Do you want to take music, or sleep?

Vincent Reid: Want to tackle music, Kirsty? I’ll take sleep.

Do babies prefer music they frequently heard in the womb?

Kirsty Dunn: Sure. Music. So, yes, this is really tricky. We do prefer sounds that we hear in the womb. Fetuses and newborns prefer familiar sounds. Research has shown that babies up to four months process sounds differently and prefer nursery rhymes they’ve heard in the womb. How long that preference lasts is hard to measure because there’s so little research on it. There’s no study that tracks this preference all the way from the womb to adulthood. Also, what complicates this is infant amnesia. Most of our earliest memories form around 3.5 years of age. At four months, the brain shifts toward preferring novelty, so the distinction between preference for familiarity and novelty is hard to assess. We begin to prefer things that will help us learn.

Zindzi Cresswell: Mm hmm.

Kirsty Dunn: It's actually difficult to measure. Anecdotally, people do report children preferring types of music that they’d be listening to in the womb, but they’ve probably also been hearing it throughout infancy as well. So if Dad really likes AC/DC, then they’re probably going to be hearing it outside the womb anyway. It’ll be difficult to know if it’s because it was heard prenatally, but we certainly do learn it. We definitely show that preference after birth. How long that preference lasts is very difficult to tell. I know from my family, that I apparently really loved Catchphrase, so that would be that familiar music. It's difficult to tell. Different music and genres are something I’ve been playing with a little bit myself in terms of processing in the womb. I worked with the ISS team, the IT team at the university, to create an AVR environment where we filtered the music to sound like it would in the womb at a music festival. We could play different festival songs and people could hear what that might sound like to their unborn child if they were to attend. That was really interesting. People really enjoyed it, so we’re working on that a bit. But yeah, very little is known about it, essentially.

How does sleep affect foetal development? Is there data on the impact of night shifts?

Zindzi Cresswell: Thank you, guys. And Vincent, what about the sleep effects? If we’re going to a festival, do we need to stay awake for all of it? Do an all-nighter, or can we get away with some cat naps?

Vincent Reid: That’s a good question. First, you asked, does the environment matter? And I would say absolutely, yes, it does. I come from a viewpoint known as Neuro Constructivism, which means that the way I understand brain development is that through various behaviors, an individual seeks out information in the environment, which enriches and rewards the brain and shapes its development in specific ways. It’s not as if everything about being human is encoded in our genes. There’s too much that needs to be learned from the environment for a person to be fully developed just from their genes. Genes have outsourced key aspects required for development to the environment. This means that the environment shapes how the brain searches for and processes new information.

So, in terms of sleep, how does sleep affect fetal development? I assume the sleep being referred to here is the sleep of the pregnant person, not the fetus. Both are really important, actually. Fetuses are masters at being asleep, that’s how they typically are. Throughout life, newborns sleep less than fetuses, and toddlers sleep less than newborns, and so on. So, there’s a linear trajectory there. But in terms of sleep, maternal sleep is crucial. The data we have on this is mostly driven by extremes. You can’t conduct experiments on sleep during pregnancy, so you rely on what I refer to as “natural experiments.” For example, if someone is unable to sleep due to excessive insomnia, what does this do? This leads to some methodological issues because there could be multiple causal reasons why it impacts fetal development. Someone who is very depressed, for example, is more likely to have low birth weight newborns, and this may be because a depressed person might not take care of themselves, leading to poor diet and other effects that impact the fetus. So, you can’t say depression or sleep dysregulation directly causes these issues, because there are cascading factors that could influence the outcomes.

So, does sleep affect fetal development? Yes, based on data from extremes of behavior. In the normal range, there isn’t much evidence. It’s the extremes that give us the information. It’s also important to note that you can’t conduct experiments forcing people to stay awake, that’s a no-go from any board I’ve encountered.

Now, as for the impact of night shift work on pregnancy, there is evidence—again, it’s at the extreme. If you’re pregnant and working night shifts, there’s a raised risk of miscarriage. This doesn’t just affect sleep or fetal behavior, but messing with your circadian rhythm, especially with extreme night shifts, can have significant effects on carrying a child. So, there is evidence for the impacts of these changes. There’s an increase in miscarriage among night shift workers who are pregnant. But again, this is incremental. It’s a risk factor, not a major, major risk. And when you put it into a wider context, such as socioeconomic status and income, those factors attenuate the risk somewhat. For example, people working night shifts in factories are less likely to be from an upper-middle-class background, and this can have flow-on effects in terms of things like nutritional differences, access to breaks, and overall health.

Zindzi Cresswell: mmhm.

Vincent Reid: So it’s not a clear-cut thing, but there are relationships there.

How does a parents movement, tech use & nature affect a baby's development before birth?

Zindzi Cresswell: I’m just conscious of time, but just to reflect back, what I’m hearing is that the fetus’s environment matters, the environment of the carrier matters, and just touching on what you were talking about earlier, night shift work in extremes would be a factor to consider. But there are also other contextual factors to consider as well. So, I’ll bring it up because one of the other questions that came in was about how technology usage impacts fetal development. I just wonder if any of you could comment on how engaging with nature shapes a child’s development. Is there any research on that?

Kirsty Dunn: Do you want to take that, Vincent? You’re quite knowledgeable on this.

Vincent Reid: Yeah, I can take it.

Kirsty Dunn: Sure.

Zindzi Cresswell: Thank you.

Vincent Reid: So, regarding parental mobility, I’m not aware of any work in this space specific to technology usage, other than mobility related to sitting at a desk, for example. That’s quite significant, but it ties into physical health and well-being, body weight, and those sorts of things. As for engagement with nature, there is some research, and it’s quite trendy to talk about things like “forest bathing.” Have you heard of this? Apparently, if you go into a forest or listen to ocean waves, it’s better for you than being in a concrete environment. What the research shows is that engaging with nature helps regulate your heart rate, calms you down, and makes you more mindful. So, these things are going to help during pregnancy and in general. But in terms of the flow-on effects for fetal development, it’s just a typical range of outcomes. Everything seems to go according to plan, and that’s all we know at the moment.

Zindzi Cresswell: Thank you.

Dunn, Kirsty

Yes, they're great on the nature. I won't add to that. But in terms of the social mobility and tech, I think that this tech would likely fall into the same societal issues, trapped as any other technology. We already know that there are differences in access to quality of care across different social economic statuses. We've got the whole north-south divide. The North and the South of England, we've got, you know, developed and developing countries and access to that, and what we may well quite easily find ourselves in is a situation of access to better survival rates that are even more exaggerated than are currently. Exaggerated in both the UK and across the world.

What is your opinion on alcohol use in pregnancy?

Cresswell, Zindzi

Very much, a more direct kind of question from the audience, but it will be interesting to know what your opinion is, on low-level alcohol use in pregnancy. Given the mixed research on whether consuming 7 units or less per week is harmful, neutral, or even beneficial for the baby, do either of you have an opinion you wish to share in response to that?

Dunn, Kirsty

It’s a very different question, isn't it?

Vincent Reid

It certainly is, and in fact, a point that I've always talked about in undergraduate development of psychology, you know, every year for the last few decades, and this is a question that people are always worried about, which makes sense. It's a very significant issue. So, what I do is actually sometimes in the lectures, I start off by saying, "So, this year this is the advice," and then I show them how the advice has changed from, "Don't even think about alcohol, you evil person," to, "Have a bottle of wine a night, no problem." And it's seriously, over the last 25 years, it's oscillated between the two in terms of current guidelines, current best thinking, and best practice. My position is, I don't really know because there's just too much variation in all of the underpinning research that sort of points towards whether that's a good or a bad thing. And in terms of the seven units per week, I couldn’t say. I would end, I mean again, it's the research on the extremes, and the problem is that a lot of it is about binge drinking. So there is significant evidence that fetal alcohol syndrome occurs because...

Cresswell, Zindzi

Mm-hmm.

Vincent Reid

You could just even have one episode of, you know, effectively ingesting a huge amount of ethanol, and that will produce fetal alcohol syndrome, whereas you’ve not consumed any alcohol at all throughout the whole pregnancy. So, there's an element of dosage—extreme dosage—that comes into play as well. So I would imagine that having, say, a glass of wine a week is not going to be the end of the world. And if it is, then my kids will be in trouble, aren't they?

Cresswell, Zindzi

Okay, Kirsty, anything to add on that?

Dunn, Kirsty

Yeah. I mean, I think it's the same as all of the other aspects, and I think, you know, why this is so important is that we just don't know. We don't have enough longitudinal evidence. You know, I'm part of a grant funded by the Nuffield Foundation, where we are trying to gather together all of the longitudinal evidence we possibly can between prenatal practice and later development. There's just so little of it out there to really be able to say definitively what the long-term consequences are. We know there are very short-term consequences in terms of the behaviour of the fetus, movement of the fetal central nervous system in utero, and those differences even out later on with very low-level drinking. So for me, I think it's a very personal decision for families based on, at the moment, not having enough evidence.

What's important to focus on now?

Cresswell, Zindzi

Thank you very much. We have a few minutes remaining, so what I wanted to do was just ask if there was anything from you both that you think is really important that we do now, as people in the general public—i.e., people like me, or academics, researchers, funders, and regulators. What is it that you think is important for us to do now? Are there some key things that you wanted to pull out from your thoughts, your research, or from the conversation we've had today so far?

Vincent Reid

Kirsty, do you want to go first?

Dunn, Kirsty

Yeah, yeah, I can do. I think for me, I think for developmental psychologists, I think it's getting involved more in answering these questions about, you know, as Vincent said, we need lots of teams doing this to answer lots of questions at the same time. For funders, really thinking about the importance of funding this with upcoming technologies, where this is really going to come to the forefront, if not thinking about those currently key wards where outcomes are not always optimum for every infant. When all the focus seems to be very much on the medical outcomes for the infant and not necessarily the perceptual or cognitive development of the fetus. I think that could be a really missed opportunity to get this involved in the development of this now.

Cresswell, Zindzi

Mm-hmm.

Dunn, Kirsty

So, yeah, that's what I would say. I'll pass over to Vincent.

Vincent Reid

From my perspective, we need to understand the parameters of what a fetus requires in order to have the optimal chance for development, and we're not even there yet. So, at this point in time...

Cresswell, Zindzi

Mm-hmm.

Vincent Reid

Take light, for example. You know, overexposure—how much light is too much? We don't know. Equally, too little. There's evidence that people who live in the Arctic Circle, with no light at all for much of the year, this can affect the vision of children as they get older, as a function of their time in the uterus. So, from those sorts of extremes, clearly, we need to know how much is overexposure, how much lack is too much, and what’s the amount that’s needed that’s actually optimal. And those optimal parameters are unknown across all sensory systems, which then have flow-on effects. But, as Kirsty said, not just for the fetus, but actually, these are lifelong issues that we need to address, as they may have impacts. So, I suppose my message there would be that it's crucial for policymakers and also for regulators to know this information.

Cresswell, Zindzi

Mm-hmm.

Vincent Reid

Ultimately, that means funders need to be able to back this kind of research before we have a whole series of technologies, such as partial exogenesis, that in some ways supersede that. We don’t want to have a whole generation of individuals from partial exogenesis who, you know, are only partially sighted when that could have been avoided, for example, if the work had been done in the correct parameters.

Cresswell, Zindzi

Mm-hmm. So, really, let’s keep focused on and learn more about this question. How can a child’s development be shaped before birth? There is that research need, as much as there is a real need for consideration of what happens to the tech—who has equity, who has access to it afterward, as well. That’s another aspect that would be interesting to dig into another time because I know we had interest in that as well.

Vincent Reid

Absolutely.

Cresswell, Zindzi

Any other final thoughts or comments in terms of what we’ve been talking about today and what you would like the world to hear or be asking of you before we close with thanks?

Dunn, Kirsty

Not from me. Vincent?

Vincent Reid

I think one important point to emphasize, which Kirsty has already mentioned, is that the implications of partial exogenesis also apply to issues like in utero eyesight in the ICU. The reality is that we already understand many of the key parameters of the uterine environment, and applying this knowledge in neonatal ICUs could be equally beneficial. Therefore, policy related to these areas also needs to be carefully considered and addressed in the same context. It's the same set of issues, essentially.

So, it’s not just about new technologies, but also about the technologies currently in use. We need to think about how they are applied in existing settings, especially in hospitals around the world. These aspects require more focus, and policy should be guided by data—though that data is often lacking

Cresswell, Zindzi

That's a really interesting thing to hear. So what can we learn from today's technologies that can help us make informed decisions about future ones is just as important as speculating about what could be the future of human reproduction.

Vincent Reid

That's, you said it so much better than I did, but yes.

Thank you and close

Cresswell, Zindzi

That's just luck! But thank you both very much. It was really great to hear your thoughts on this really interesting and important topic. Before we close off our conversation for the day, I just wanted to say thank you to you both for spending this time together with me as part of the Future of Human Reproduction Research Showcase that we've been doing in the early part of 2025. I found it fascinating, and I'm sure the people who listen to this recorded content will do as well.

I just wanted to say again, thank you very much to the Wellcome Trust who supported the Future of Human Reproduction programme.

And thanks again to all of the audience members who submitted their questions in advance of this recording. We will be in touch.

Thank you again, and we'll see you for the next instalment, which will take place in May.

Thank you.

Related Blogs

Disclaimer

The opinions expressed by our bloggers and those providing comments are personal, and may not necessarily reflect the opinions of Lancaster University. Responsibility for the accuracy of any of the information contained within blog posts belongs to the blogger.

Back to blog listing

Our use of cookies

How can a child's development be shaped before birth?