There Is No Safe Drug
A Harvard biochemist declared that any drug a pregnant woman takes will, in some way, affect her baby, often within seconds. Said Dr. C. A. Villee, "The drugs may differ in how long it takes them to affect the unborn child. But they all get through sooner or later, mostly sooner."
He warned, "Women often take drugs before they realize they are pregnant, and early pregnancy is most dangerous in the sense that the fetus is most vulnerable then." He added that most malformations of the child have their origin in the first three months of pregnancy (Los Angeles Times, Feb. 1, 1968).
Doctors know that the concept of an absolutely safe drug is a myth — but a myth too many people seem to believe in!
Even drugs tested on animals and which appeared "safe" can be DEADLY to unborn babies! An example would be the drug thalidomide which did not cause malformation of fetuses of experimental animals. But it certainly affected humans!
A survey at Jessop Hospital for Women revealed that doctors who treat expectant mothers with drugs of the cortisone family may run a GRAVE RISK of killing the babies. Previously this was not considered a serious threat.
Animal experiments have uncovered the fact that even such an "innocent" drug as aspirin may, in certain instances, be dangerous. Among the drugs doctors are taking a suspicious look at are the salicylates (found in aspirin), insulin, penicillin, streptomycin, adrenaline and various hormonal compounds!
Said Dr. Virginia Apgar, an authority on birth defects, "There are approximately a DOZEN DRUGS SUSPECTED of contributing to abnormalities in the newborn and they include certain tranquilizers and common household headache remedies" (New York Times, Dec. 4, 1967).
Vividly pointing up the tragedy which can occur from drugs taken by pregnant women is the fact that babies of women who have had LSD, who have smoked marijuana, taken heroin or other drugs sometimes are born HOOKED ON DRUGS. The condition of the infants, called "neonatal addiction," in many ways is similar to adult drug addiction.
Doctors have also found evidence that LSD causes chromosome breakdowns in the fetuses of pregnant women. One doctor found four highly abnormal fetuses conceived by LSD users. The babies had serious brain and skull deficiencies.
Dr. Cecil B. Jacobson, a George Washington University geneticist, and his associates studied 75 female LSD users. He found moderate to severe flaws in the chromosomes of at least 50 percent.
Studying the fetuses of these women, they found 22 normal births, 35 abortions, 14 of which were intact enough for study. Of the 14, four had "exencephaly," a deadly brain and skull defect, which, in the past, usually shows up in less than one half of one percent of babies.
Drugs are risky business!
Danger of Radiation
Another cause of congenital deformities is exposure to radiation, such as X-ray dosage.
Dr. Karl Z. Morgan, one of the pioneers in radiation research, warned that studies in animals have proved X-ray exposure of the fetus can produce birth defects such as crippling, impaired vision and mental retardation. Extreme doses can be FATAL!
He cited studies indicating the number of deaths from leukemia and other cancers is around 40 percent higher among children whose mothers had diagnostic X-ray treatments when they were pregnant.
Another researcher, H. Bentley Glass, a geneticist for Johns Hopkins University, reports that among the harmful mutations caused by radiations are mongoloid idiocy and sexual mal-development.
"At present one cannot say," declared this geneticist, "how many mongoloid idiots and sexual aberrant types have been produced by radiation." Any amount of ionizing radiation, he warned, increases the risk of harmful mutations.
Other Serious Causes
Viruses, such as the rubella virus which causes German measles, have been proved to be undeniably dangerous to unborn babies.
Some cases of birth defects seem to have been traced to polio vaccines given to expectant mothers. Several doctors have warned women of childbearing age not to be vaccinated against smallpox while they are pregnant because maternal vaccination can kill the unborn child. This advice was given by three doctors at Queen's College, University of St. Andrew's in Dundee, Scotland.
Now add to these causes the MAN INDUCED defects at childbirth. For instance, among the serious causes of mental retardation is physical injury to the brain. More than 126,000 children born each year in the United States will never rise to an intellectual level higher than that of a 12-year-old. Why?
Officials of many training centers for the retarded acknowledge that IMPATIENT DOCTORS and a TOO CASUAL ATTITUDE among expectant mothers accounts for fully 95 percent of mental deficiency. These are the doctors who rush for the forceps to hasten the delivery of babies.
Said Superintendent Tom Hoeflok of the Chrisholme Society, "It is well established that 95 percent of mental retardation is the result of birth injuries or antenatal accident or neglect."
Importance of Nutrition
Proper nutrition is the single most important factor in preventing birth defects! Improper diet can jeopardize the health of unborn children.
Too many women are simply too casual in their attitudes toward childbirth and pregnancy. Proper diet is VITAL to an expectant mother if she wants to prevent birth deformities in her children! Dr. Marjorie Nelson at the University of California has shown in the laboratory that a temporary deficiency of folic acid during early pregnancy, for example, can cause birth abnormalities in young animals.
Women should PLAN for pregnancy at least six months in advance, both physically and psychologically. The well-being of the offspring depends largely upon the health and mental attitude of the parents.
Says Dr. Coda Martin, "The scientific evidence is overwhelming that inadequate nutrition before and during pregnancy is one of the three principal causes of abnormalities in infants, the others being genetic defects and prenatal injuries. Conversely, the same evidence indicates that there is a strong relationship between good parental nutrition and healthy offspring" (A Matter of Life, p. 36).
Good nutrition before and during pregnancy gives the baby a sound launching pad, as it were — gets him or her off to a STRONG START in life! Unfortunately, American surveys have shown that most women enter pregnancy with nutritional deficiencies. Dr. Robert W. Hillman of the State University of New York has estimated that perhaps three fourths of the teen-age female population may be as much as TWO-THIRDS deficient in thiamin, riboflavin, calcium, iron or other essential factors. This is serious because HALF of the marriages in the United States involve brides under 20.
The British Medical Journal, commenting on the fact that certain birth defects were seasonal, declared that "the most obvious explanation" was that seasonal nutritional deficiencies were responsible.
Writes Dr. Martin, "An increasing amount of experimental evidence indicates that many fetal, or congenital, defects may result from dietary deficiencies in the mother during pregnancy, rather than from heredity. There is also evidence that FULL NUTRITION during pregnancy can modify the effects of a genetic defect, and it now appears that heredity and environment work as close partners in determining the presence and degree of fetal malformations.
"With the incidence of congenital deformities of all types — physical, mental or chemical — in the United States now 2.5 percent of all live births, or 250,000 each year, no thinking parents can afford to ignore such evidence" (ibid., p. 47).
Even mental retardation is associated with poor parental nutrition. A British authority on mental disease, Dr. Julius Steinfeld, flatly declared that schizophrenia originates in underfeeding during the first few weeks of life in the uterus!
Some doctors suspect that many of the degenerative diseases such as heart ailments may originate in constitutional inadequacies at birth!
A study at Harvard's School of Public Health showed that 95 percent of the deliveries of babies of women with good-to-excellent nutrition were without complications; among women with poor-to-very-poor diets, the results were almost the exact opposite (ibid., p. 49).
Love in the Home
Another very interesting factor in having healthy babies is the love and harmony in the home. Emotional harmony and peace in the home (and therefore in the mother) may very definitely be important in the child's developing nervous system. Emotional stress in pregnant women disturbs the chemical and hormonal balance in the body. This imbalance may be transmitted to the fetus where it can interfere with its utilization of essential nutrients, causing the child to have a faulty nervous system. On the other hand, a home environment of love and harmony, where the mother's body chemistry remains normal, leads toward having a normal, stable, emotionally balanced baby.
If you are planning children, be CAREFUL to obtain a diet adequate in all nutritional aspects. Too many parents to-be neglect to include enough properly prepared vegetables and fruits, fresh whole milk, or foods rich in complete proteins and other nutrients. The health you affect will be MORE than your own. Your offspring's health will be directly affected, and the health of future generations as well!
Maintain a happy, tranquil, peaceful, BALANCED HOME LIFE.
All of these are important factors to bear in mind when considering having a child.
Another consideration for expectant mothers to keep in mind is the danger in high altitudes of a lack of oxygen. A Denver physician has warned women to stay below the altitude of 10,000 feet during the final three months of pregnancy, lest skeletal deformities, lack of teeth and hair, brain impairment or even death result for the child.
The Only Solution
If You are interested in doing your BEST to have a healthy, vigorous, alert and NORMAL CHILD, then please read our free literature, The Seven Laws of Radiant Health. This reprint article shows what You can do to help insure that YOUR children will be normal and healthy!
When men forsake the vitally important laws regulating our health, when they tamper with diet, indulge in drugs, imbibe useless chemicals and dangerous pesticides, they reap the PENALTY!
The only true solution to the modern curse of birth defects is to begin obeying the laws which God ordained for our health, well-being, and abundant good! When we break those laws, they snap back on us and break us and our children, and our children's children!
The Curse of the Womb
You may not believe it, but the Creator God said to our forefathers, centuries ago, that if our peoples would obey Him, we would be healthy and prosperous. "Blessed shall be the fruit of thy body and the fruit of thy ground" (Deut. 28:4).
But, if we turned from the laws that would keep us happy and healthy, God said: "But it shall come to pass, if thou wilt not hearken unto the voice of the LORD thy God, to observe to Do all his commandments and his statutes which I command thee this day; that all these CURSES shall come upon thee, and overtake thee: Cursed shalt thou be in the city, and cursed shalt thou be in the field. Cursed shall be thy basket and thy store. CURSED SHALL BE THE FRUIT OF THY BODY, and the fruit of thy land, the increase of thy kind [cattle], and the flocks of thy sheep. Cursed shalt thou be when thou comest in, and cursed shalt thou be when thou goest out" (Deut. 28:15-19).
These are plain words, spoken centuries ago. Have they come to pass? Absolutely!
If you begin to live by the laws God set in motion for our own good, then your children will stand a FAR BETTER CHANCE of being normal, healthy, vigorous and alert!
The lives of your children, and their children depend on YOUR decision! What are you going to do about it?