"Life's grisliest disasters and maladjustments take place years before conception and then following, in the womb
" "As mother, so is the child. Most congenital deformities can be prevented, and monstrosities that have appalled and frightened mankind since antiquity should become avoidable."
INTRODUCTION
Hygienic doctor Robert R. Gross did have a hygienic fasting retreat (The Pauling Health Manor) in the New York area for 25 plus years - together with his wife, cookbook author Joy Gross.
Dr. Robert R. Gross: BIRTH DEFECTS CAN BE AVOIDED!
An Urgent Message to Prospective Parents
Each of us is the sum of what he was born with and everything that has happened to him up to this moment. He is the product of his inheritance, intra- and extra-uterine environment, cultural background, the personality of his parents, school and religious influences, and the customs and habits of the society in which he lives.
Most of what has made us what we are was beyond our control. We realize this, not to weep over it, but also not to let it pursue us throughout our life. We cannot rewrite the past but we can modify the present.
We can reshape the future by supporting the will to live in times of stress with Natural Hygiene knowledge. Thus, we may overcome the inevitable crises in life with the least damage and with the most momentum for proceeding on our route in making our lives as rich and happy as they can be made.
To a very limited extent inheritance is responsible for some deformities, susceptibilities that lead to imperfect development, and abnormal functions of the body. These deviations would be due to grossly microscopic entitles called "genes," located in the chromosomes which, in turn, are found within the nuclei of the reproductive cells (ova and spermatozoa). This inheritance or hereditary factor is tremendously overplayed in importance and incorrectly blamed for the tragedies encountered in births and infant life.
Natural Hygiene has always - and within the past few years, the epidemiologist of the medical profession also - realized that most congenital (resulting from one's heredity) deformities are not foreordained by heredity but are preventable accidents of development in the womb. It is very possible to circumvent most congenital deformities by improving the preparation for pregnancy and by careful attention to stresses and Natural Hygiene habits during this period.
START OF LIFE
The life of an individual begins not on the day he is born but even long before he is conceived. Life's grisliest disasters and maladjustments take place, as often as not, years before conception and, then following, in the womb. Here, as an embryo (the developmental stage until three months) and fetus (the developmental stage from three months to birth) he is subject to the action of the elements and malice of the mother's non-hygienic living habits. These catastrophies go unnoticed at the time; they may be signaled only by a rash, occasional headache, and vomiting, irrascible temperament or nervousness.
For often there isn't any sign of the tragedy until the baby is born with a single eye (cyclopia) or a dwarfed body, a cleft palate, unhearing ears, unseeing eyes, a blighted mind, cataracts, monstrosities, heart disease, or heart and organs being left outside the chest cavity, or in failure of one or both legs or arms to develop, or in erythroblastosis fetalis.
Concern with congenital deformity has its roots in antiquity and the birth of a deformed baby in ancient times evoked fear and awe.
In savage cultures such babies were often sacrificed to the gods or thrown into a river as possessed of evil spirits. Even in less crude societies the mothers were sometimes brought to trial on mystical grounds and occasionally were burned at the stake. In recent times the blame had been transferred mainly to the genes and family heredity in explaining the birth of freaks.
Experiments on animals, and Hygienists disdain this practice, have demonstrated conclusively that crippling deformities arise from injuries and irritations to the embryo at certain stages of its development. An embryo that began its life with perfectly normal "genes" may, by the time it is born, have only one eye or two heads or three legs.
External stresses applied to these animals included feeding deficient diets, subjection to extremes of temperature, presentation of mazes and puzzles to unnerve and perplex them, diminution of oxygen, reduction of sufficient sleep and rest and other agents used to produce enervation. Effects of like disturbances and adverse influences on human pregnant women have been proved beyond doubt.
Alcohol, nicotine, caffeine - the unholy trinity;
white sugar and white flour products,
canned, devitalized, demineralized and processed foods,
lack of sufficient sunshine, fresh air, proper exercise; mental poise and sufficient rest
are all devastating factors indulged in during pregnancy and cause birth mishaps of various kinds.
Anesthesia, surgery, exposure to X-rays, vitamin pills, cortisone and hormonal intoxication
and all drugs
should be completely avoided for they are hazardous and have profound effects upon the embryo particularly in the early stages when the organs are in a "semi-fluid state."
TIME TABLE OF DEFECTS
The consequences that ensue from these above-named insults to the unborn baby depend upon the time they occur or on the time that their cumulative poisonous effects has reached beyond the danger point of toleration. It is possible to draft a timetable or calendar, which relates deformities to the age of the embryo at the time of injury or passing the vital toleration point of accumulated material toxins.
The latter are caused by (1) an incorrect mode of living and by (2) consumption of drugs.
Stresses producing a one-eyed baby generally may come during the first week or two after fertilization of the egg for at this time the cellular parts from which the two eyes will develop are so close together as to be virtually single.
Next in order comes the stage at which conjoined (so-called siamese) twins may originate from an injury which prevents separation of the two individuals.
In about the third weekcritical injury or "toleration toxins" may result in the heart or other organs being left outside the body cavity, or maldevelopment of legs or arms may occur - because this is the time when the heart and viscera are still outside the body cavity and the limb buds are formed and starting to grow.
Injury in the fourth week, when the windpipe is developing from the gullet, may produce the well-known defect, which leaves an opening between the windpipe and gullet - so-called tracheo-esophageal fistula.
In the fifth week, when the lenses of the eye are forming, the embryo is vulnerable to congenital cataract.
During the seventh week it may be doomed to a cleft palate for the separated two halves of the palate normally start to close at this time.
Injury or vital toxic accumulation in the eighth week may produce mongolism. It is at this point that the embryo begins to develop the base of the brain and skull, the wall of the heart, the nasal bones and the fingers - all structures that are blighted in mongolism.
The inner ear undergoes rapid differentiation during the ninth weekand a mishap or "toxic torrent" at this period may result in a deaf baby.
This is only part of the list of defects that can be created at the respective ages of the embryo and the whole matter rests on quite a more or less orderly, scientific basis. These defects actually occurring during the various critical stages of the development of the embryo are the scars of injury to the unborn child in the womb. Each deformity is like a "still' picture taken from a moving picture strip, representing abnormal development of the particular affected organs.
MOTHER RESPONSIBILITY
The fetus during intrauterine development is dependent upon the mother for protection
from injurious forces and for all the appropriate and adequate factors of development, maintenance and growth. Its entire nutritional state is predicated on that of the mother's. As mother, so is the child.
Most congenital deformities can be prevented, and monstrosities that have appalled and frightened mankind since antiquity should become avoidable - if humans would only realize that the health and development of the evolving fetus are based on any and every factor of life that affects the health of the mother, either positively or negatively.
The entire health level, efficiency, happiness and success of the infant and child are dependent upon the habits of the prospective mother. It is the latter's maternal duty, moral responsibility and physical obligation to study and understand the laws of begetting a vigorous baby. She should realize that superstitions, ignorance, intolerance, vast misrepresentations and prejudices exist in the field of orthodox prenatal and pediatric care.
Adherence to the rational laws of life - embodied by the practice of Natural Hygiene - will produce well nourished, well-developed, and vital children.
Fear, fright and apprehension will disappear once it is realized that normal babies evolve from normal habits. And normal babies produce a grand and glorious race that is wise, healthy, peaceful, kind, tolerant, loving and courageous.
Also read: What You do when You Vaccinate - about the lymphatic system and its function, and the effect of vaccination on this system, as well as the dangers of vaccination.
Also read: How Diseases are Cured - contrary to popular belief, a cold is not something that we "catch," but it represents a process of getting rid of something we have slowly accumulated.
Each of us is the sum of what he was born with and everything that has happened to him up to this moment. He is the product of his inheritance, intra- and extra-uterine environment, cultural background, the personality of his parents, school and religious influences, and the customs and habits of the society in which he lives. 