Human: The World Within (2021) s01e01 Episode Script
Birth
1
-We're the same, me and you.
Well, kind of.
In one big way
we were both born.
And it's not just us.
All 7 1/2 billion of us
living on planet earth
right now,
we all got exactly
the same start in life.
-We all started as one cell big.
What a miracle is it that we are
the complex beings we are
that are capable
of everything that we do.
-More than 131 million humans
are born each year
250 every minute.
While our understanding
of how babies develop
and who can create life
is evolving,
the simple equation that begins
all human life remains
One sperm
and one egg
that egg, formed before
the mother was even born
an unbroken lineage
connecting generations
and defining
what it means to be human.
When you look at the history
of life on earth,
we humans are relative newbies.
Only a few hundred thousand
years have passed
since our evolutionary ancestors
created the first homo sapiens.
But in the last 50 years,
we've witnessed a revolution
in reproduction.
Science is giving us
extraordinary new insights
into the miracle of life,
from what's really happening
inside the womb
to unlocking the secrets
of attraction.
And as the saying goes, it
actually does take two to tango.
-In dancing, we say,
"One plus one equals one."
So when you dance together,
you need one couple.
So not two people. It's one.
My name is Alla.
-My name is Alex, and we're
professional ballroom dancers
in Los Angeles, California.
-When I first saw Alex,
I remember I kind of like,
"Hmm, who is that guy?"
New guy in our dance studio.
There was something what I liked
about his body, about his look,
but I didn't like
his dance partner.
I remember I was like, "He has
to have a better dance partner."
-I remember the time
when I saw Alla,
I would never forget
that moment.
When I danced
with her first time,
I was quite overwhelmed
with how I felt.
Just the way how she moved
on the floor,
how she smiled
how she expressed herself,
then you get attracted to this.
-Though it may feel like
love at first sight,
what you're really feeling
in those first heady days
is lust,
the engine of sexual desire.
And the fuel that's firing up
your libido?
Those are hormones.
-We tend to think of hormones as
just this sort of vague notion
or women being moody,
but hormones
have a specific definition.
Hormones are packets
of teeny-tiny chemicals
released from one gland
and targeted to another,
faraway part of the body.
- Turns out, sex
is literally on our minds.
Just above the brain stem
are the pituitary gland
and the hypothalamus.
Those areas of the brain
send signals down to the ovaries
and the testes to start
pumping out more estrogen
and testosterone
hormones that not only
rev up your sex drive,
they effectively shut down
the logical part of your brain.
In other words,
love literally makes us
dumb.
-When I'm around Alex,
I'm always crazy.
Every time when I touch him,
when I smell him,
I think I lose my mind.
I can't control myself.
-I have to run away
from her sometimes.
She just attacks me, and I feel
like I'm a gazelle and she
No, stop it.
- and she's a tiger.
- You don't have to say that.
-When your hormones are raging
or when they're too high
or too low,
we're just talking teeny,
little nanograms difference
up or down,
coming from our brains,
coming from our ovaries
and our testes.
These teeny, weeny,
tiny chemicals
that have such huge impact
all over the body,
on our growth, the way we think,
on our behavior.
I'm just fascinated by that.
I'm attracted to them. I'm
aroused by hormones, I can say.
-When humans move from feelings
of lust to attraction,
a different set of hormones
are released
dopamine and norepinephrine.
This cocktail of chemicals
causes our hearts to race
our palms to sweat,
our cheeks to flush.
We feel more energetic,
euphoric,
giddy even.
Attraction also reduces
our serotonin levels
causing new lovers to lose sleep
and their taste for food.
-Our sense of smell,
our sense of sight,
our sense of touch
all have to do
with the way our hormones
are reacting in our brains.
Precisely how,
precisely how much,
we're just beginning to learn.
-When I'm close to Alla,
there's a special scent,
the smell of maybe peaches,
right?
There's some kind of fruits
that I want to eat.
It's very sweet.
Very delicious.
-Alex always smells good.
He smells perfect.
I don't even want him
take a shower.
-Across the animal kingdom,
bees and moths,
elephants and mice,
even fish attract others
of their species through scent.
These creatures and many others
secrete special chemical
substances called pheromones.
Pheromones signal
that the female of the species
is feeling kind of randy.
-Here's the real deal
on pheromones.
If you're a female
silkworm moth,
and you want to catch your guy,
a male silkworm moth,
you can emit a pheromone.
It will travel pretty far,
hit some guy,
and he will come back to you
like a sex slave.
He will mount you.
We can't do that.
Humans do not emit pheromones.
Most women, I think,
can manipulate men,
but it's through other ways,
other than pheromones.
-Humans may not be slaves
to scent like silkworm moths.
But how a person smells
does appear to sway
our choice of mates.
One study found
that, in a blind test,
women preferred the scent of
a man with a symmetrical face.
Body symmetry,
where the right and left sides
are almost mirror images,
is considered a universal
indicator of attractiveness.
-The moment she touches me,
I feel it going through
my fingers to my heart.
-I love to dance with Alex.
It's such an amazing gift
that I can dance with someone
who I really love.
I'm a touchy person,
so I need to touch.
For me to say, it's not enough.
-In a lot of other
social primates,
touch is important
for maintaining relationships.
For example, it's normal
to groom each other.
It's also something that can be
done sort of strategically
to make alliances
or to apologize.
So it's clear that touch
is important that way.
-Brain scans show that a simple
caress on the arm activates
an area of the frontal lobe
that signals a coming reward.
Similar touch patterns
have also been shown
to deactivate regions
of the brain related to stress.
I have a surprise for you.
- What surprise?
- Close your eyes!
Close your eyes! Don't look!
- Okay.
-Open your eyes, honey.
- Oh, my God.
- Happy birthday!
- How beautiful!
How did you carry it here?
It's so hot!
-We got married in 2006
in Russia.
We have three
beautiful children,
Daniel, Michael, and Angelina.
Daniel is 13, Michael is 8,
and Angelina is turning 6.
-
papa happy birthday!
I cannot imagine my life
without Alex.
He's my everything.
He is my world.
-I cannot envision
what I would do without her.
-When it comes to the human
reproductive system
it's a tale of two extremes.
Males produce sperm,
the smallest cell,
while females produce eggs, the
largest cell in the human body.
-The structure of the egg
is actually fascinating,
because it's the only cell
in the human body
that we can visualize
with the naked eye.
The egg is about the size
of the tip of a pencil.
-When a baby girl is born,
her ovaries already contain all
the eggs she will ever produce,
somewhere around a million.
By the time she hits puberty,
a fraction will remain.
Of those, only about 400 eggs
will mature
and have even the slightest
chance of being fertilized.
A male, on the other hand,
produces exponentially
more sperm.
-In a lifetime, men will create
525 billion sperm.
Each second, they are creating
about 1,500 sperm.
It's a fascinating number
and means a lot of disposable
sperm that we don't use.
-A sperm is a blob of DNA
with a tail
not nearly as complicated
as the egg.
Each ejaculate
has about 200 million sperm.
Most of them never even make it
close to the egg
because they're most of them
are losers.
They swim the wrong way.
They dawdle.
It's a pretty tortuous journey
to get to the egg.
-Completing that journey
takes speed and stamina.
Recently, researchers discovered
that sperm don't actually
move their tales back and forth
like eels,
as was commonly thought.
Instead, they found
that sperm actually move
more like playful otters,
spiraling in a corkscrew motion
in search of an egg.
-The fascinating part
about the sperm is that
when a boy or a girl embryo
are created,
it is because of the difference
between sperm.
One theory is male sperm
swim faster,
so they will get
to the egg faster,
but they die sooner,
whereas female sperm swim slower
and are more persistent.
They will actually last longer.
-While the baby's gender may not
be in the mother's control,
the choices she makes day to day
during her pregnancy
will have a profound effect
on her baby for its entire life.
From what she eats
to how much she moves,
doctors are discovering
new insights
into how nearly every decision
has lasting impacts.
-Previously, I wasn't really
ready to have a kid
because of the idea
that I had to stop
everything that I was doing
or everything
that I thought was me.
When I heard stories
of very powerful ladies, like,
who were pregnant still dancing,
I think it changed everything.
My name is Jacqueline.
Most people call me Jacq.
I'm 31 this year.
I'm a dancer,
a dance instructor in Singapore.
The fact that I can be pregnant
and still dance,
it's like a dream to me.
-Well, how is the pregnancy
going on now?
- Now? Great!
-So, we are seeing the baby now.
So this is the hand.
You see the fingers
just wave at us?
- Oh, my God.
- Do you see that?
- Wow!
- That's the fingers
that was just waving at us.
-Jacqueline is nearing the
halfway point in her pregnancy.
During the second trimester,
her baby will triple in size,
and unique features will emerge,
from the pattern of its hair
to its individual footprints
and fingerprints.
-In the second trimester
of pregnancy, the baby
will go from being
about 2 1/2 to 3 centimeters
and grow almost up
to several inches.
-Though Jacqueline's baby
will grow rapidly
in the next few weeks,
its most impressive growth spurt
happened at the start
of her pregnancy.
If that pace continued,
her baby would weigh
3,000 pounds at birth.
-It's an extraordinary fact
that at one point, each of us
as people
were only one cell big.
Those cells divided in two
and four and eight
and then started to specialize
as we developed as humans.
Cells can collaborate
with one another
to create very complex beings
like who we are as humans.
They're really the unsung heroes
of the body.
-So, you can see that the baby
is in the amniotic sac.
This is the placenta.
The baby is taking nutrients
through the absorption
of the placenta.
-The placenta is an organ
that allowed us
to grow offspring
within our bodies
to a much greater level
of development
than what you see
in other mammals.
What this means is that
the offspring's protected
for a longer period of time,
and it's also
sort of efficiently nourished
and maintained,
and it's buffered
from the outside world
to a certain extent by the mom.
This is clearly a strategy
that became quite successful,
because in most areas
of the world, placental mammals
have seemingly
out-competed marsupials.
- The placenta
is a fascinating organ.
It's the only temporary organ
we have in the human body.
The placenta allows for the
formation of the umbilical cord.
Baby's able to get oxygen
from Mom
and get rid of waste
and carbon dioxide
all because of
the umbilical cord.
It's almost like
the amniotic scuba gear.
-But that's not all.
The placenta serves
as a critical buffer
between Mom and fetus.
If Jacqueline's blood
were to mix with her baby's,
her body would attack it
as an outside invader.
But inside the placenta,
a microscopically thin
barrier of cells
separates the two
blood supplies.
-Okay, so we can see that some
of the features are growing.
Can you see the eyes?
- Mm-hmm.
- Oh.
-Eyes are growing here.
That's the nose.
The baby is really active.
Can you see that?
- Yeah, oh, my God.
- The legs are kicking.
Did you drink coffee today?
- No.
- You didn't?
-Not touched coffee.
- Not touched coffee, okay.
- At all since I found out.
-Since the last time
we've seen the baby
-Moms are often advised
to reduce caffeine intake
during pregnancy, because
it passes through the placenta
and can cause the baby's heart
to beat even faster.
Though smaller than a thumbnail,
the fetal heart
beats twice as fast
as the average adult heart,
pumping an astonishing
100 pints of blood per day.
- So, let's listen
to the heartbeat.
This is the classical moment.
So, the heartbeat is about 150.
- That's higher
than the last time.
-Yeah, the heartbeat
is very strong.
-For expectant parents,
few things in life
top hearing your baby's
heartbeat for the first time.
That rush of excitement
may even help
make up for
some of the side effects
Jacqueline and others experience
during pregnancy.
From nausea and swollen ankles
to bloating and constipation,
carrying a baby
isn't always a picnic.
-
Do you find
that there's any changes
to your taste buds
at this moment?
- Lemon.
- Oh.
-Yeah, lemon just makes me puke.
- I see. I see.
- Yeah, I don't know why.
-You used to like lemon
when you were not pregnant.
-I like sour taste.
Like, really sour,
I love it, yeah.
So I was quite shocked.
-Changing taste buds is a common
side effect of pregnancy.
Medically, the condition
is known as dysgeusia.
While the cause of dysgeusia
is not fully understood,
rising hormone levels
are often blamed.
-I'm Chinese, so I love
Chinese spicy food.
It's like my best friend.
Cheers me up when I'm down.
Compared to before, I don't eat
spicy food as often,
'cause it also causes
some discomfort, like bloating,
you know, especially
in the first trimester.
Not sure
what my baby's tasting inside.
If my baby could taste
everything that I ate,
it would be quite a ride.
-At this point, we really
want to make sure
that Mom is maintaining
her nutrition
and her ability to rest,
because the placenta needs
to be able to continue
to give oxygen to the baby.
We know that the baby's
five senses
have been really starting
to be honed, especially taste.
-Yeah, everybody's like,
"I think it's a boy,"
but I want a girl.
-You have an idea.
-What a pregnant woman
eats and drinks
not only provides nourishment,
it may also influence
her child's food preferences
later in life.
A baby develops taste buds
in utero
as it gulps down a yellowish
liquid called amniotic fluid.
Think of it as a kind of
"first food"
a complex mixture of chemicals
shown to contain
both tastes and smells.
-They've done studies
with amniotic fluid
where they had women
eat certain foods
that were considered to be
a little bit more potent
like garlic,
and when they did smell tests,
they noticed that people
were able to recognize the smell
of flavors like garlic.
-But it's not only
Jacqueline's daily diet
that directly impacts her fetus.
Research shows
how much she moves
can be just as influential.
-I've been dancing
since I was 9 years old.
But of course, during pregnancy,
I kind of have to buffer
that explosiveness.
I would like to think
that every time when I move,
the baby is moving, as well.
Sometimes when I feel something
in my womb,
I don't know
if it's actually the baby.
-Most women won't start
feeling their babies move
until around the 16th week
of their pregnancy.
These flutters
are called quickening.
That motion is critical
to its development.
Leg movement during
the embryonic stage
helps certain cells know
if they're to become
bone or cartilage.
-At our studio and company here,
this is the first time
that somebody is pregnant.
So we're all getting used to
having a pregnant woman
in the studio.
In Singapore,
it's not that common,
people that are pregnant
being still active.
Everybody is, like,
really careful with me.
If I slip just a little,
everybody's like,
"Take it easy. Rest."
I secretly feel like
the baby enjoys movement.
-It's not just Mom's behavior
that so influences the health
of an unborn baby.
From what we eat
to the stress we feel,
science shows us
that the life experience
of even the grandparents
affect their offspring all the
way down to the cellular level.
We're talking about epigenetics.
-Epigenetics is essentially the
genetics that we are born with
but the environment
changing them
meaning if you took
the exact same embryo,
a twin embryo that had
the same egg and sperm genetics,
and you implanted it
into two different woman's uteri
or one woman at two different
times of her life,
the expression
or the epigenetics
of that particular embryo
would alter
based on so many
different aspects
that we can't even
completely account for anymore.
-Think about smoking.
A woman who smokes is not only
affecting her own health,
she is affecting
her unborn child
and her unborn grandchildren,
because of the effect
of the smoking
on the reproductive cells,
not just on the fetus,
but on the fetal
reproductive cells.
That's an epigenetic phenomena
that's three generations deep.
-From lifestyle choices
to environmental factors,
epigenetic changes passed down
through generations
are shown to affect
the fetal reproductive cells
of females and males.
Researchers are now zeroing in
on whether this type
of epigenetic inheritance
may be to blame for a rise
in infertility rates,
particularly among men.
It's estimated that as many
as one in seven couples
trying to get pregnant
experience infertility.
-Seeing Levi as a result
of the trials and tribulations
that we've been through trying
to bring him into this world,
it's amazing.
It's inexplicable,
because this is everything
you've ever wanted.
My name is Jenny Pierre,
I am a wife, a mother of one,
and soon to be two.
When you're young, you don't
really think about children.
Good job.
But when I met my husband,
it was like,
"Oh, my God. I'm so in love,
I want to see what we can make."
It was just a no-brainer that,
okay, once we start trying,
you know, as soon as
I'm off birth control,
we're going to get into it,
and, boom, it's gonna happen
like in two seconds.
Good job, Levi.
Nope. That was not
the case for us.
-Birthing as a metaphor to me
is an example
of what life really is like
for everyone.
I tell patients
throughout the entire process,
"We cannot control
what's going to happen,
but if the end result
gives us the yield that we want,
which is a happy, healthy
mother and baby,
then it's worth everything,"
which is exactly
how I would view life.
-We made the decision
to start trying in 2015.
After six months, you're looking
at each other like,
"Uh, what is going on?
Why are we not, you know,
getting pregnant?
Let's go see someone."
I knew from the start
I was told by my doctor
that I had about two
to three fibroids.
And she was like, "It's not
anything you need to worry about
until it becomes a problem."
-Fibroids, like Jenny's,
are non-cancerous tumors
that grow inside
and outside the uterine walls.
They're made of muscle
and fibrous tissue.
No one knows exactly why
fibroids occur.
But it's estimated
that up to 80% of women
are affected by them.
That's 26 million people
in the US alone.
In Jenny's case,
she had 15 fibroids removed,
one the size of a tennis ball.
-We thought my fibroids
was the big hoopla,
like, the big to-do.
But Paul gets a sperm analysis,
and he has a low sperm count.
-I was really surprised
and couldn't believe it.
Come to find out
that I had, what, var
- Varicocele.
- Varicocele.
-Infertility is actually
a really big issue nowadays.
1/3 of infertility
within couples
will be because of the man,
1/3 will be
because of the woman,
and 1/3 will be unexplained.
In the man, there can be issues
with the number of sperm
or with the structure
of the sperm.
This can be due to things
that are anatomical,
like something
called a varicocele.
-Varicocele is a condition
in which one testicle,
often the left, is enlarged
due to issues with blood supply.
It's kind of like
a varicose vein
and affects sperm formation,
movement, and function.
Paul was able to have
the problem corrected
through surgery.
He also took medication
to boost his testosterone levels
and jump-start sperm production.
- So, now what?
My doctor said, "Until we
run out of resources or options,
we're going to keep going."
We called our doctor.
"Hey, we've decided that we want
to go straight to IVF."
-In vitro fertilization
is an amazing
scientific-technological entity
that now doctors are being able
to perform all the time.
Essentially, they will give
the woman a lot of hormones
that are typically injected,
a hormone called FSH,
follicle-stimulating hormone,
predominantly.
This will stimulate the woman's
ovary to release many eggs.
-I-I don't want to say
it was scary,
but, you know,
you go to the doctor,
and you come back home
with all these prescriptions.
And next thing you know,
you get this box,
you know, arrives at your house
filled with needles.
My hands were, like, you know,
sweating and shaky.
-I think it was like 3
in the morning and 3 at night,
and it was just,
like, back to back,
back to back, back to back.
- Lot of shots.
- A lot of shots.
- Lot of shots.
-Under ultrasound guidance,
through her vagina,
they will actually
extract the eggs,
and then the lab technicians
who have the sperm available,
the egg and the sperm,
then create the embryo
within the lab.
The embryo can either be frozen
or can then be placed
back into the woman's uterus
to implant and create
a healthy pregnancy.
- Good morning!
We are on our way
to get pregnant.
Baby?
Whether you're a boy or a girl,
we will love you
unconditionally.
The moment that
they transferred the embryo,
you have to wait two weeks
in order to know
if you have tested positive
for your pregnancy.
It's torture for those
two-week timeframe.
I went to the doctor,
did a blood test,
and she came back.
She was just like, "Listen.
You're, like,
pregnant,
pregnant."
We're pregnant!
Aah! We're pregnant. Okay, okay,
let me stop hitting myself.
And we're just over the moon
at this point
and so excited
to just start planning.
-Baby-proofing the house
and changing doorknobs.
- I cannot deal.
And they always tell you
not to get too excited,
because you're not
at the 12-week mark.
For those 12 weeks,
you become so paranoid in a way.
-Each year that a woman ages,
her chance of getting pregnant
does go down a small amount
and the chance of a miscarriage
does go up a small amount.
But at no point
does it jump exponentially.
The likelihood of a miscarriage
in pregnancies
that we recognize
meaning a woman has
a positive pregnancy test,
she's determined to be
pregnant is estimated
at anywhere from 20% to 25%.
So one in about four
or five pregnancies
will end in miscarriage.
That number is probably higher
when you include
a lot of unrecognized
or very early pregnancies.
So that's estimated to be
potentially as high as 50%
of all pregnancies
ending in loss.
Most of the time
when there is a miscarriage,
we can comfort the patient
by saying it is the chromosomes
that were abnormal
and that's not something
that's likely to recur
in the next pregnancy.
-Alright, so, it's been a while
since I've done this.
-And I don't remember,
either, so
So, this is not as quick
as I thought it was gonna be,
although we have practice.
Nothing is ready!
-The third trimester,
your anxiety is at 1,000.
"How do I get ready
for this baby?"
and, "Am I ready for this baby?"
-After 26 weeks or so
we consider the third trimester.
The baby is growing about
1/2 pound a week at that point
until what we consider
the due date.
- The due date
really is an estimate.
-Look at us. Teamworks.
-And those last four weeks
of pregnancy,
a lot of that time is just
getting the baby nice and fat
and a little extra sturdy
to come out.
That's why babies that might be
born like a week early
or a few days
or two weeks early,
they might be thinner,
but they're healthy.
They're fully developed.
-But you felt him move, right?
You felt Baby Brother move?
- Yeah.
- Okay, yeah.
In my IVF journey,
one of the hardest things
was finding someone that looked
like me that I could relate to.
I've taken it upon myself
to be the poster child in a way.
-Hey, girl! What's going on?
- I am fine.
I have so many questions.
- Where do we start?
Today, I have my friend
Elizabeth coming over.
She is quite interested
in the IVF journey,
and I'm hoping to share
my experience with her.
I wanted to see a Black woman
that said,
"These are the difficulties
that I'm dealing with."
I have a whole protocol sheet
for you to look at.
"Hey, guys, white people are not
the only people that do IVF.
Asians are not the only ones
that do IVF."
Those are the only two faces
that I saw waving the flag
and saying, "Hey, guys,
I did IVF, and I'm proud."
This takes you through
what your days would look like
and how many shots you need
to give yourself per day,
'cause, again,
like I said, it's a lot.
When we came out with our story,
the feedback
was just ridiculous.
We, especially
in the Black community,
need to stop making it
a taboo subject.
Just say, "Hey, guys,
there is no shame in this.
I had fibroids.
Hey, my husband had
low sperm count as a Black man."
I'm really hoping
that I encourage
some Black women
or Black families, really.
Everything that it took
to get here is worth it.
It's literally
- Oh, yeah. It's worth it.
- Absolutely worth it.
- It's so worth it.
-Jenny and Paul are nearing
the finish line
of her pregnancy.
When it's time for her
to give birth, it's her uterus
that will be tapped to do
the heavy lifting of labor.
-There's actually controversy
about what the strongest muscle
in the body is.
Some people will say the jaw
or the tongue,
and while they are
incredibly strong,
many would argue that those ones
are utilized every day,
whereas the uterus
is an amazing muscle and organ,
because it's all of a sudden,
without being exercised,
asked to change in shape
and grow and stretch to several
times its normal size,
which no other muscular organ
does in our body.
And then,
without, again, experience,
it's asked to contract
several times
throughout the course of labor,
asking the cervix then to open.
-The cervix is the muscle
at the bottom of the uterus
that acts as a gateway
to the birth canal.
Problem is, this passageway
is about an inch too small
for a baby's head.
So nature came up with
an evolutionary solution.
-During labor and delivery,
babies are preparing
for this massive Houdini exit
from a seemingly small space
going through a cervix.
Now, we look at the human skull,
the baby's skull,
and sometimes we think
it's one bone,
but newborn babies
have a special trick
for fitting through
a cervical canal.
The bone is actually five bones
connected by sutures
or kind of like expansion joints
so that that baby's skull
can actually literally smush
through a cervical canal.
-During the birthing process,
the brain actually also
gets squeezed, they realized.
And that can actually
alter what happens
when the baby is born throughout
the baby's entire lifetime.
-It may sound scary, but
the fact that the baby's brain
gets squeezed during labor
is actually a good thing.
Early research suggests that the
journey through the birth canal
provides a kind
of "healthy stress"
that appears to have
a positive effect
on how certain genes
behave down the road.
These genes are linked to immune
responses, weight control,
and some so-called
tumor suppressor genes.
And that's not the only
benefit of labor.
- We also know
that babies born vaginally
get coated
with a lot of the healthy germs
that are in the birth canal
or the mother's vagina
as the baby's coming out.
So babies do get some of their
mother's immune system at birth,
as they're then
developing their own.
-I started out as a doula
about five years ago.
A doula is a emotional
and physical support person
who works with families
during pregnancy,
as well as postpartum,
after they have a baby.
To be a companion and a witness
to the miracle of birth,
to be allowed in that space
and invited into that space,
is such an honor.
It's the best work
that anybody could ever imagine.
My name is Mac Brydum, and I'm
a doula and a family guide.
Every birth that I've attended
has been unique.
There's no one way that's right
to birth.
It's really unique
to each individual
and their preferences.
Ultimately, the goal
is that the baby comes out.
Pregnancy never lasts forever,
and that that bond
between the birthing parent
and the baby can begin.
Some of my favorite clients
have been the queer and trans
families that I've supported.
Bearing witness to their journey
really inspired me
to pursue that path
of becoming a parent myself.
-Human pattern of childbirth
is really kind of unique,
because unlike even our closest
living relatives
like chimpanzees,
human moms typically seek help.
This is what is called
obligate midwifery.
What that means
is that it's normal in humans
to have assistance
at the time of birth.
And this pattern
is probably reflective
of the fact that we have
very difficult childbirth.
It usually takes us longer.
The process of labor
is more dangerous for humans.
-Labor is probably one of the
most physical endurance tests
that any woman
has ever had to go through.
The labor process itself
can take anywhere
from 1 or 2 hours
in a very fast case,
up to 24, 36, even longer.
Right as the baby
is about to come out,
there is that moment where
I think everyone in the room
is shocked that a head this big
can come out of an orifice
that looks so much smaller.
- Hi, you guys.
- Hey, how's it going?
-Good, thank you. How are you?
- We're good.
We just started getting
all the nursery items yesterday.
Yeah, we're excited.
-I work from home,
which is really wonderful
as a new parent.
Great. So, our time today
is really just all about
how to take care
of your newborn.
I know you're
first-time parents.
Becoming a parent
is a really pivotal time
in everybody's life.
Let's talk a little bit
about newborn appearance.
This is my daughter.
This is Rowan.
I'm so in love with her
that I just have to make sure
that she gets little moments
of glory in here.
Rowan's 4 months old,
and the first four months
of her life
have been a roller coaster ride,
but a really fun one
for the most part.
I think we had a little bit of
a leg up because I am a doula,
and I have some
of the book smarts.
On the first day of life,
baby's tummy is this big.
But, you know, she's a baby.
She's unpredictable.
There have been days that have
been really challenging,
and there have been moments
that have been really stressful.
Ultimately, she's an amazing
little person,
and I can't wait to see
who she becomes.
-Gee, I wonder what's in here.
-As a doula supporting families,
I thought that I knew
what to expect
through pregnancy and birth.
- Oh, hello.
-Welcome to our nursery.
-But ultimately, once you
go through it on your own
and have that physical
experience of gestating a baby
and a birthing a baby
-We have cute photos
and more cute photos.
- I have so much more respect
and awe
for the families that I support.
-And a cute daddy.
- I'm a trans man.
I was assigned female at birth.
I have a uterus and ovaries
and the parts to be able
to gestate a pregnancy
at the same time, be true
to myself as the man that I am.
Before I met my spouse,
I didn't have a strong sense
that I wanted to carry a baby.
- All done!
-Once I met her and started
to imagine our life together,
that's when the idea
of being a gestational dad
and carrying my baby
felt like a dream
that I could make a reality.
Yeah?
-A big piece of that
was that my spouse did not want
to carry a pregnancy.
But she has always
wanted to be a mom,
and I've always wanted
to be a dad.
Our process of getting pregnant
was pretty long.
We realized, "Okay, we have half
the equation to make a baby."
-I joke that we have
an abundance of uteri
in our relationship.
-We asked a friend of ours
to be our sperm donor.
And then from there,
I stopped taking hormones.
So, I was taking testosterone
for about seven years.
Waited for a cycle to return,
which took a little while.
And then we started doing
inter-uterine inseminations.
- It's moving its arms!
- Eventually after
several attempts,
several more months going by,
we finally did conceive.
I had a planned cesarean birth.
For me as a trans man, the idea
of giving birth vaginally
felt pretty incompatible
with my sense
of my body and myself.
In my work as a doula, I know
that cesarean rates
in the US especially
are much higher
than they need to be.
There are a lot of cesareans
that are performed
unnecessarily.
But in my case, it felt like
the right choice.
-Whether they're born through
a C-section or vaginal birth,
when a newborn first emerges
from the womb,
their body systems
are hard at work,
adjusting to life
on the outside.
The transition from fetus
to newborn involves
the most complex series
of physiologic adaptations
a human will experience
in its lifetime.
-When babies are in utero,
their lungs are filled
with fluid,
and there are certain channels
in the cardiovascular system
which are designed
to bypass their lungs,
because they get their oxygen
from the umbilical cord.
But once babies leave the womb
and everything changes,
the atmospheric pressure
in their new world
triggers a big change
in their heart and lungs.
They attempt to rid all
the fluid out of their lungs,
and their cardiovascular system
immediately undergoes changes
to accommodate this.
Their lungs slowly fill with
air, and they're able to now
live, breathe, and thrive
in their new environment.
-Before Rowan was born,
we got to the hospital
really early in the morning,
and a few hours later,
she was there.
Hi.
- Hi.
- That's a good sound.
- The actual birth
was incredible.
It was not something
I'd ever seen before.
-Hi, honey. Hi, Rowan.
- There you are.
- Hi.
- It was intense.
It was beautiful.
Seeing her little face
made it all worth it.
- Oh, is that nice
to be back with Daddy?
-You know, it made
every ache and pain
and every time I puked during
pregnancy and during birth,
it made it all worth it,
because I got to see
my little person be born.
Hi, baby.
-In the moments after birth,
a newborn will experience
hunger,
thirst, cold,
for the first time ever.
They'll be completely reliant
on those around them
for survival.
But they do have a secret weapon
to help them
adjust to life outside
the womb vernix caseosa.
This white, waxy cream
protected their skin
from amniotic fluid
inside the womb.
It contains a complex mix
of proteins,
lipids, amino acids,
and antimicrobial compounds.
It's believed to be unique
to the human species.
Outside the womb, vernix caseosa
helps prevent heat loss,
and research suggests
that its scent may help
trigger neural connections
in the newborn's brain that are
needed for breastfeeding.
-Nice, warm bottle for you.
-For us, the idea of feeding
Rowan breast milk was important.
I have had top surgery,
and so I don't have the ability
to feed Baby from my body.
We've been really privileged
to have people in our life
who are already lactating
and have pumped that milk
and donated that milk to us
to feed Rowan.
-Babies who are fed breast milk
benefit from nearly
200 different sugars
that the milk contains.
Those sugars feed the microbes
that will, over time,
help the baby develop
a healthy digestive system.
-Breast milk, the third
most common ingredient in it
is something called an HMO,
a human milk oligosaccharide.
And human milk oligosaccharides
are completely
indigestible by babies.
So why is the third most common
ingredient in breast milk
something that a baby
can't even digest?
It's because it's not there
to feed the baby.
It's there to feed
the baby's gut bacteria
and help those bacteria
to repel staph
and other potentially
dangerous bacteria.
So there's real symbiosis there
between what's going on
in the breast milk
and what's going on
in the baby's gut.
-Babies who don't breastfeed
can also benefit
from human milk oligosaccharide,
as synthetic versions are added
to some brands
of infant formula.
- All done.
All done. Nice work!
Rowan really completes
our family.
When she was born,
I feel like I already knew her.
I'd felt her kick inside of me,
and it's a really big gift
that so many dads
don't get to have.
-The assumption is that women
want to have babies,
and men can't.
Our family turns
that expectation on its head.
Now that Rowan is here,
it just doesn't really matter
how we got here.
-The experience has been
so empowering,
because it's basically
the ultimate definition
of father as protector,
and I feel like
I've played that role
from the time that Rowan
was growing inside of me.
- Regardless of
where we live in the world,
one thing that unifies all of us
is that we were all born.
We all came into this world
in much the same way.
-Why am I emotional?
Come on.
It's just birth.
I knew scientifically
there was no question
that we all started
as one cell big,
and I knew that consciousness
is something that develops.
And yet nothing could prepare me
for living through
the experience
of incubating a new human,
my little baby,
wondering, when was
she starting to think?
Is her personality
starting to develop?
-The developing brain
is fascinating.
From the first cells laid down
during fetal development,
the potential of
the human brain is vast
the capacity to learn, to feel
and empathize with others.
Humanity is locked into
those hundred million cells.
-Oh! You're smiling at yourself.
-With each generation,
the human species evolves.
-While it's hard to say
any one given baby
is going to be born perfect,
I do believe
that we have this ability
to really encourage children
to move and grow and evolve
into beings that are far better
than we were.
-And we really are
an insanely fascinating species.
You strip away everything
privilege, socioeconomics,
race, religion
We literally
are the same organisms.
We go through the exact same
physiologic struggles,
and if that doesn't
unify people,
then I have no idea
what's going to.
-We're the same, me and you.
Well, kind of.
In one big way
we were both born.
And it's not just us.
All 7 1/2 billion of us
living on planet earth
right now,
we all got exactly
the same start in life.
-We all started as one cell big.
What a miracle is it that we are
the complex beings we are
that are capable
of everything that we do.
-More than 131 million humans
are born each year
250 every minute.
While our understanding
of how babies develop
and who can create life
is evolving,
the simple equation that begins
all human life remains
One sperm
and one egg
that egg, formed before
the mother was even born
an unbroken lineage
connecting generations
and defining
what it means to be human.
When you look at the history
of life on earth,
we humans are relative newbies.
Only a few hundred thousand
years have passed
since our evolutionary ancestors
created the first homo sapiens.
But in the last 50 years,
we've witnessed a revolution
in reproduction.
Science is giving us
extraordinary new insights
into the miracle of life,
from what's really happening
inside the womb
to unlocking the secrets
of attraction.
And as the saying goes, it
actually does take two to tango.
-In dancing, we say,
"One plus one equals one."
So when you dance together,
you need one couple.
So not two people. It's one.
My name is Alla.
-My name is Alex, and we're
professional ballroom dancers
in Los Angeles, California.
-When I first saw Alex,
I remember I kind of like,
"Hmm, who is that guy?"
New guy in our dance studio.
There was something what I liked
about his body, about his look,
but I didn't like
his dance partner.
I remember I was like, "He has
to have a better dance partner."
-I remember the time
when I saw Alla,
I would never forget
that moment.
When I danced
with her first time,
I was quite overwhelmed
with how I felt.
Just the way how she moved
on the floor,
how she smiled
how she expressed herself,
then you get attracted to this.
-Though it may feel like
love at first sight,
what you're really feeling
in those first heady days
is lust,
the engine of sexual desire.
And the fuel that's firing up
your libido?
Those are hormones.
-We tend to think of hormones as
just this sort of vague notion
or women being moody,
but hormones
have a specific definition.
Hormones are packets
of teeny-tiny chemicals
released from one gland
and targeted to another,
faraway part of the body.
- Turns out, sex
is literally on our minds.
Just above the brain stem
are the pituitary gland
and the hypothalamus.
Those areas of the brain
send signals down to the ovaries
and the testes to start
pumping out more estrogen
and testosterone
hormones that not only
rev up your sex drive,
they effectively shut down
the logical part of your brain.
In other words,
love literally makes us
dumb.
-When I'm around Alex,
I'm always crazy.
Every time when I touch him,
when I smell him,
I think I lose my mind.
I can't control myself.
-I have to run away
from her sometimes.
She just attacks me, and I feel
like I'm a gazelle and she
No, stop it.
- and she's a tiger.
- You don't have to say that.
-When your hormones are raging
or when they're too high
or too low,
we're just talking teeny,
little nanograms difference
up or down,
coming from our brains,
coming from our ovaries
and our testes.
These teeny, weeny,
tiny chemicals
that have such huge impact
all over the body,
on our growth, the way we think,
on our behavior.
I'm just fascinated by that.
I'm attracted to them. I'm
aroused by hormones, I can say.
-When humans move from feelings
of lust to attraction,
a different set of hormones
are released
dopamine and norepinephrine.
This cocktail of chemicals
causes our hearts to race
our palms to sweat,
our cheeks to flush.
We feel more energetic,
euphoric,
giddy even.
Attraction also reduces
our serotonin levels
causing new lovers to lose sleep
and their taste for food.
-Our sense of smell,
our sense of sight,
our sense of touch
all have to do
with the way our hormones
are reacting in our brains.
Precisely how,
precisely how much,
we're just beginning to learn.
-When I'm close to Alla,
there's a special scent,
the smell of maybe peaches,
right?
There's some kind of fruits
that I want to eat.
It's very sweet.
Very delicious.
-Alex always smells good.
He smells perfect.
I don't even want him
take a shower.
-Across the animal kingdom,
bees and moths,
elephants and mice,
even fish attract others
of their species through scent.
These creatures and many others
secrete special chemical
substances called pheromones.
Pheromones signal
that the female of the species
is feeling kind of randy.
-Here's the real deal
on pheromones.
If you're a female
silkworm moth,
and you want to catch your guy,
a male silkworm moth,
you can emit a pheromone.
It will travel pretty far,
hit some guy,
and he will come back to you
like a sex slave.
He will mount you.
We can't do that.
Humans do not emit pheromones.
Most women, I think,
can manipulate men,
but it's through other ways,
other than pheromones.
-Humans may not be slaves
to scent like silkworm moths.
But how a person smells
does appear to sway
our choice of mates.
One study found
that, in a blind test,
women preferred the scent of
a man with a symmetrical face.
Body symmetry,
where the right and left sides
are almost mirror images,
is considered a universal
indicator of attractiveness.
-The moment she touches me,
I feel it going through
my fingers to my heart.
-I love to dance with Alex.
It's such an amazing gift
that I can dance with someone
who I really love.
I'm a touchy person,
so I need to touch.
For me to say, it's not enough.
-In a lot of other
social primates,
touch is important
for maintaining relationships.
For example, it's normal
to groom each other.
It's also something that can be
done sort of strategically
to make alliances
or to apologize.
So it's clear that touch
is important that way.
-Brain scans show that a simple
caress on the arm activates
an area of the frontal lobe
that signals a coming reward.
Similar touch patterns
have also been shown
to deactivate regions
of the brain related to stress.
I have a surprise for you.
- What surprise?
- Close your eyes!
Close your eyes! Don't look!
- Okay.
-Open your eyes, honey.
- Oh, my God.
- Happy birthday!
- How beautiful!
How did you carry it here?
It's so hot!
-We got married in 2006
in Russia.
We have three
beautiful children,
Daniel, Michael, and Angelina.
Daniel is 13, Michael is 8,
and Angelina is turning 6.
-
papa happy birthday!
I cannot imagine my life
without Alex.
He's my everything.
He is my world.
-I cannot envision
what I would do without her.
-When it comes to the human
reproductive system
it's a tale of two extremes.
Males produce sperm,
the smallest cell,
while females produce eggs, the
largest cell in the human body.
-The structure of the egg
is actually fascinating,
because it's the only cell
in the human body
that we can visualize
with the naked eye.
The egg is about the size
of the tip of a pencil.
-When a baby girl is born,
her ovaries already contain all
the eggs she will ever produce,
somewhere around a million.
By the time she hits puberty,
a fraction will remain.
Of those, only about 400 eggs
will mature
and have even the slightest
chance of being fertilized.
A male, on the other hand,
produces exponentially
more sperm.
-In a lifetime, men will create
525 billion sperm.
Each second, they are creating
about 1,500 sperm.
It's a fascinating number
and means a lot of disposable
sperm that we don't use.
-A sperm is a blob of DNA
with a tail
not nearly as complicated
as the egg.
Each ejaculate
has about 200 million sperm.
Most of them never even make it
close to the egg
because they're most of them
are losers.
They swim the wrong way.
They dawdle.
It's a pretty tortuous journey
to get to the egg.
-Completing that journey
takes speed and stamina.
Recently, researchers discovered
that sperm don't actually
move their tales back and forth
like eels,
as was commonly thought.
Instead, they found
that sperm actually move
more like playful otters,
spiraling in a corkscrew motion
in search of an egg.
-The fascinating part
about the sperm is that
when a boy or a girl embryo
are created,
it is because of the difference
between sperm.
One theory is male sperm
swim faster,
so they will get
to the egg faster,
but they die sooner,
whereas female sperm swim slower
and are more persistent.
They will actually last longer.
-While the baby's gender may not
be in the mother's control,
the choices she makes day to day
during her pregnancy
will have a profound effect
on her baby for its entire life.
From what she eats
to how much she moves,
doctors are discovering
new insights
into how nearly every decision
has lasting impacts.
-Previously, I wasn't really
ready to have a kid
because of the idea
that I had to stop
everything that I was doing
or everything
that I thought was me.
When I heard stories
of very powerful ladies, like,
who were pregnant still dancing,
I think it changed everything.
My name is Jacqueline.
Most people call me Jacq.
I'm 31 this year.
I'm a dancer,
a dance instructor in Singapore.
The fact that I can be pregnant
and still dance,
it's like a dream to me.
-Well, how is the pregnancy
going on now?
- Now? Great!
-So, we are seeing the baby now.
So this is the hand.
You see the fingers
just wave at us?
- Oh, my God.
- Do you see that?
- Wow!
- That's the fingers
that was just waving at us.
-Jacqueline is nearing the
halfway point in her pregnancy.
During the second trimester,
her baby will triple in size,
and unique features will emerge,
from the pattern of its hair
to its individual footprints
and fingerprints.
-In the second trimester
of pregnancy, the baby
will go from being
about 2 1/2 to 3 centimeters
and grow almost up
to several inches.
-Though Jacqueline's baby
will grow rapidly
in the next few weeks,
its most impressive growth spurt
happened at the start
of her pregnancy.
If that pace continued,
her baby would weigh
3,000 pounds at birth.
-It's an extraordinary fact
that at one point, each of us
as people
were only one cell big.
Those cells divided in two
and four and eight
and then started to specialize
as we developed as humans.
Cells can collaborate
with one another
to create very complex beings
like who we are as humans.
They're really the unsung heroes
of the body.
-So, you can see that the baby
is in the amniotic sac.
This is the placenta.
The baby is taking nutrients
through the absorption
of the placenta.
-The placenta is an organ
that allowed us
to grow offspring
within our bodies
to a much greater level
of development
than what you see
in other mammals.
What this means is that
the offspring's protected
for a longer period of time,
and it's also
sort of efficiently nourished
and maintained,
and it's buffered
from the outside world
to a certain extent by the mom.
This is clearly a strategy
that became quite successful,
because in most areas
of the world, placental mammals
have seemingly
out-competed marsupials.
- The placenta
is a fascinating organ.
It's the only temporary organ
we have in the human body.
The placenta allows for the
formation of the umbilical cord.
Baby's able to get oxygen
from Mom
and get rid of waste
and carbon dioxide
all because of
the umbilical cord.
It's almost like
the amniotic scuba gear.
-But that's not all.
The placenta serves
as a critical buffer
between Mom and fetus.
If Jacqueline's blood
were to mix with her baby's,
her body would attack it
as an outside invader.
But inside the placenta,
a microscopically thin
barrier of cells
separates the two
blood supplies.
-Okay, so we can see that some
of the features are growing.
Can you see the eyes?
- Mm-hmm.
- Oh.
-Eyes are growing here.
That's the nose.
The baby is really active.
Can you see that?
- Yeah, oh, my God.
- The legs are kicking.
Did you drink coffee today?
- No.
- You didn't?
-Not touched coffee.
- Not touched coffee, okay.
- At all since I found out.
-Since the last time
we've seen the baby
-Moms are often advised
to reduce caffeine intake
during pregnancy, because
it passes through the placenta
and can cause the baby's heart
to beat even faster.
Though smaller than a thumbnail,
the fetal heart
beats twice as fast
as the average adult heart,
pumping an astonishing
100 pints of blood per day.
- So, let's listen
to the heartbeat.
This is the classical moment.
So, the heartbeat is about 150.
- That's higher
than the last time.
-Yeah, the heartbeat
is very strong.
-For expectant parents,
few things in life
top hearing your baby's
heartbeat for the first time.
That rush of excitement
may even help
make up for
some of the side effects
Jacqueline and others experience
during pregnancy.
From nausea and swollen ankles
to bloating and constipation,
carrying a baby
isn't always a picnic.
-
Do you find
that there's any changes
to your taste buds
at this moment?
- Lemon.
- Oh.
-Yeah, lemon just makes me puke.
- I see. I see.
- Yeah, I don't know why.
-You used to like lemon
when you were not pregnant.
-I like sour taste.
Like, really sour,
I love it, yeah.
So I was quite shocked.
-Changing taste buds is a common
side effect of pregnancy.
Medically, the condition
is known as dysgeusia.
While the cause of dysgeusia
is not fully understood,
rising hormone levels
are often blamed.
-I'm Chinese, so I love
Chinese spicy food.
It's like my best friend.
Cheers me up when I'm down.
Compared to before, I don't eat
spicy food as often,
'cause it also causes
some discomfort, like bloating,
you know, especially
in the first trimester.
Not sure
what my baby's tasting inside.
If my baby could taste
everything that I ate,
it would be quite a ride.
-At this point, we really
want to make sure
that Mom is maintaining
her nutrition
and her ability to rest,
because the placenta needs
to be able to continue
to give oxygen to the baby.
We know that the baby's
five senses
have been really starting
to be honed, especially taste.
-Yeah, everybody's like,
"I think it's a boy,"
but I want a girl.
-You have an idea.
-What a pregnant woman
eats and drinks
not only provides nourishment,
it may also influence
her child's food preferences
later in life.
A baby develops taste buds
in utero
as it gulps down a yellowish
liquid called amniotic fluid.
Think of it as a kind of
"first food"
a complex mixture of chemicals
shown to contain
both tastes and smells.
-They've done studies
with amniotic fluid
where they had women
eat certain foods
that were considered to be
a little bit more potent
like garlic,
and when they did smell tests,
they noticed that people
were able to recognize the smell
of flavors like garlic.
-But it's not only
Jacqueline's daily diet
that directly impacts her fetus.
Research shows
how much she moves
can be just as influential.
-I've been dancing
since I was 9 years old.
But of course, during pregnancy,
I kind of have to buffer
that explosiveness.
I would like to think
that every time when I move,
the baby is moving, as well.
Sometimes when I feel something
in my womb,
I don't know
if it's actually the baby.
-Most women won't start
feeling their babies move
until around the 16th week
of their pregnancy.
These flutters
are called quickening.
That motion is critical
to its development.
Leg movement during
the embryonic stage
helps certain cells know
if they're to become
bone or cartilage.
-At our studio and company here,
this is the first time
that somebody is pregnant.
So we're all getting used to
having a pregnant woman
in the studio.
In Singapore,
it's not that common,
people that are pregnant
being still active.
Everybody is, like,
really careful with me.
If I slip just a little,
everybody's like,
"Take it easy. Rest."
I secretly feel like
the baby enjoys movement.
-It's not just Mom's behavior
that so influences the health
of an unborn baby.
From what we eat
to the stress we feel,
science shows us
that the life experience
of even the grandparents
affect their offspring all the
way down to the cellular level.
We're talking about epigenetics.
-Epigenetics is essentially the
genetics that we are born with
but the environment
changing them
meaning if you took
the exact same embryo,
a twin embryo that had
the same egg and sperm genetics,
and you implanted it
into two different woman's uteri
or one woman at two different
times of her life,
the expression
or the epigenetics
of that particular embryo
would alter
based on so many
different aspects
that we can't even
completely account for anymore.
-Think about smoking.
A woman who smokes is not only
affecting her own health,
she is affecting
her unborn child
and her unborn grandchildren,
because of the effect
of the smoking
on the reproductive cells,
not just on the fetus,
but on the fetal
reproductive cells.
That's an epigenetic phenomena
that's three generations deep.
-From lifestyle choices
to environmental factors,
epigenetic changes passed down
through generations
are shown to affect
the fetal reproductive cells
of females and males.
Researchers are now zeroing in
on whether this type
of epigenetic inheritance
may be to blame for a rise
in infertility rates,
particularly among men.
It's estimated that as many
as one in seven couples
trying to get pregnant
experience infertility.
-Seeing Levi as a result
of the trials and tribulations
that we've been through trying
to bring him into this world,
it's amazing.
It's inexplicable,
because this is everything
you've ever wanted.
My name is Jenny Pierre,
I am a wife, a mother of one,
and soon to be two.
When you're young, you don't
really think about children.
Good job.
But when I met my husband,
it was like,
"Oh, my God. I'm so in love,
I want to see what we can make."
It was just a no-brainer that,
okay, once we start trying,
you know, as soon as
I'm off birth control,
we're going to get into it,
and, boom, it's gonna happen
like in two seconds.
Good job, Levi.
Nope. That was not
the case for us.
-Birthing as a metaphor to me
is an example
of what life really is like
for everyone.
I tell patients
throughout the entire process,
"We cannot control
what's going to happen,
but if the end result
gives us the yield that we want,
which is a happy, healthy
mother and baby,
then it's worth everything,"
which is exactly
how I would view life.
-We made the decision
to start trying in 2015.
After six months, you're looking
at each other like,
"Uh, what is going on?
Why are we not, you know,
getting pregnant?
Let's go see someone."
I knew from the start
I was told by my doctor
that I had about two
to three fibroids.
And she was like, "It's not
anything you need to worry about
until it becomes a problem."
-Fibroids, like Jenny's,
are non-cancerous tumors
that grow inside
and outside the uterine walls.
They're made of muscle
and fibrous tissue.
No one knows exactly why
fibroids occur.
But it's estimated
that up to 80% of women
are affected by them.
That's 26 million people
in the US alone.
In Jenny's case,
she had 15 fibroids removed,
one the size of a tennis ball.
-We thought my fibroids
was the big hoopla,
like, the big to-do.
But Paul gets a sperm analysis,
and he has a low sperm count.
-I was really surprised
and couldn't believe it.
Come to find out
that I had, what, var
- Varicocele.
- Varicocele.
-Infertility is actually
a really big issue nowadays.
1/3 of infertility
within couples
will be because of the man,
1/3 will be
because of the woman,
and 1/3 will be unexplained.
In the man, there can be issues
with the number of sperm
or with the structure
of the sperm.
This can be due to things
that are anatomical,
like something
called a varicocele.
-Varicocele is a condition
in which one testicle,
often the left, is enlarged
due to issues with blood supply.
It's kind of like
a varicose vein
and affects sperm formation,
movement, and function.
Paul was able to have
the problem corrected
through surgery.
He also took medication
to boost his testosterone levels
and jump-start sperm production.
- So, now what?
My doctor said, "Until we
run out of resources or options,
we're going to keep going."
We called our doctor.
"Hey, we've decided that we want
to go straight to IVF."
-In vitro fertilization
is an amazing
scientific-technological entity
that now doctors are being able
to perform all the time.
Essentially, they will give
the woman a lot of hormones
that are typically injected,
a hormone called FSH,
follicle-stimulating hormone,
predominantly.
This will stimulate the woman's
ovary to release many eggs.
-I-I don't want to say
it was scary,
but, you know,
you go to the doctor,
and you come back home
with all these prescriptions.
And next thing you know,
you get this box,
you know, arrives at your house
filled with needles.
My hands were, like, you know,
sweating and shaky.
-I think it was like 3
in the morning and 3 at night,
and it was just,
like, back to back,
back to back, back to back.
- Lot of shots.
- A lot of shots.
- Lot of shots.
-Under ultrasound guidance,
through her vagina,
they will actually
extract the eggs,
and then the lab technicians
who have the sperm available,
the egg and the sperm,
then create the embryo
within the lab.
The embryo can either be frozen
or can then be placed
back into the woman's uterus
to implant and create
a healthy pregnancy.
- Good morning!
We are on our way
to get pregnant.
Baby?
Whether you're a boy or a girl,
we will love you
unconditionally.
The moment that
they transferred the embryo,
you have to wait two weeks
in order to know
if you have tested positive
for your pregnancy.
It's torture for those
two-week timeframe.
I went to the doctor,
did a blood test,
and she came back.
She was just like, "Listen.
You're, like,
pregnant,
pregnant."
We're pregnant!
Aah! We're pregnant. Okay, okay,
let me stop hitting myself.
And we're just over the moon
at this point
and so excited
to just start planning.
-Baby-proofing the house
and changing doorknobs.
- I cannot deal.
And they always tell you
not to get too excited,
because you're not
at the 12-week mark.
For those 12 weeks,
you become so paranoid in a way.
-Each year that a woman ages,
her chance of getting pregnant
does go down a small amount
and the chance of a miscarriage
does go up a small amount.
But at no point
does it jump exponentially.
The likelihood of a miscarriage
in pregnancies
that we recognize
meaning a woman has
a positive pregnancy test,
she's determined to be
pregnant is estimated
at anywhere from 20% to 25%.
So one in about four
or five pregnancies
will end in miscarriage.
That number is probably higher
when you include
a lot of unrecognized
or very early pregnancies.
So that's estimated to be
potentially as high as 50%
of all pregnancies
ending in loss.
Most of the time
when there is a miscarriage,
we can comfort the patient
by saying it is the chromosomes
that were abnormal
and that's not something
that's likely to recur
in the next pregnancy.
-Alright, so, it's been a while
since I've done this.
-And I don't remember,
either, so
So, this is not as quick
as I thought it was gonna be,
although we have practice.
Nothing is ready!
-The third trimester,
your anxiety is at 1,000.
"How do I get ready
for this baby?"
and, "Am I ready for this baby?"
-After 26 weeks or so
we consider the third trimester.
The baby is growing about
1/2 pound a week at that point
until what we consider
the due date.
- The due date
really is an estimate.
-Look at us. Teamworks.
-And those last four weeks
of pregnancy,
a lot of that time is just
getting the baby nice and fat
and a little extra sturdy
to come out.
That's why babies that might be
born like a week early
or a few days
or two weeks early,
they might be thinner,
but they're healthy.
They're fully developed.
-But you felt him move, right?
You felt Baby Brother move?
- Yeah.
- Okay, yeah.
In my IVF journey,
one of the hardest things
was finding someone that looked
like me that I could relate to.
I've taken it upon myself
to be the poster child in a way.
-Hey, girl! What's going on?
- I am fine.
I have so many questions.
- Where do we start?
Today, I have my friend
Elizabeth coming over.
She is quite interested
in the IVF journey,
and I'm hoping to share
my experience with her.
I wanted to see a Black woman
that said,
"These are the difficulties
that I'm dealing with."
I have a whole protocol sheet
for you to look at.
"Hey, guys, white people are not
the only people that do IVF.
Asians are not the only ones
that do IVF."
Those are the only two faces
that I saw waving the flag
and saying, "Hey, guys,
I did IVF, and I'm proud."
This takes you through
what your days would look like
and how many shots you need
to give yourself per day,
'cause, again,
like I said, it's a lot.
When we came out with our story,
the feedback
was just ridiculous.
We, especially
in the Black community,
need to stop making it
a taboo subject.
Just say, "Hey, guys,
there is no shame in this.
I had fibroids.
Hey, my husband had
low sperm count as a Black man."
I'm really hoping
that I encourage
some Black women
or Black families, really.
Everything that it took
to get here is worth it.
It's literally
- Oh, yeah. It's worth it.
- Absolutely worth it.
- It's so worth it.
-Jenny and Paul are nearing
the finish line
of her pregnancy.
When it's time for her
to give birth, it's her uterus
that will be tapped to do
the heavy lifting of labor.
-There's actually controversy
about what the strongest muscle
in the body is.
Some people will say the jaw
or the tongue,
and while they are
incredibly strong,
many would argue that those ones
are utilized every day,
whereas the uterus
is an amazing muscle and organ,
because it's all of a sudden,
without being exercised,
asked to change in shape
and grow and stretch to several
times its normal size,
which no other muscular organ
does in our body.
And then,
without, again, experience,
it's asked to contract
several times
throughout the course of labor,
asking the cervix then to open.
-The cervix is the muscle
at the bottom of the uterus
that acts as a gateway
to the birth canal.
Problem is, this passageway
is about an inch too small
for a baby's head.
So nature came up with
an evolutionary solution.
-During labor and delivery,
babies are preparing
for this massive Houdini exit
from a seemingly small space
going through a cervix.
Now, we look at the human skull,
the baby's skull,
and sometimes we think
it's one bone,
but newborn babies
have a special trick
for fitting through
a cervical canal.
The bone is actually five bones
connected by sutures
or kind of like expansion joints
so that that baby's skull
can actually literally smush
through a cervical canal.
-During the birthing process,
the brain actually also
gets squeezed, they realized.
And that can actually
alter what happens
when the baby is born throughout
the baby's entire lifetime.
-It may sound scary, but
the fact that the baby's brain
gets squeezed during labor
is actually a good thing.
Early research suggests that the
journey through the birth canal
provides a kind
of "healthy stress"
that appears to have
a positive effect
on how certain genes
behave down the road.
These genes are linked to immune
responses, weight control,
and some so-called
tumor suppressor genes.
And that's not the only
benefit of labor.
- We also know
that babies born vaginally
get coated
with a lot of the healthy germs
that are in the birth canal
or the mother's vagina
as the baby's coming out.
So babies do get some of their
mother's immune system at birth,
as they're then
developing their own.
-I started out as a doula
about five years ago.
A doula is a emotional
and physical support person
who works with families
during pregnancy,
as well as postpartum,
after they have a baby.
To be a companion and a witness
to the miracle of birth,
to be allowed in that space
and invited into that space,
is such an honor.
It's the best work
that anybody could ever imagine.
My name is Mac Brydum, and I'm
a doula and a family guide.
Every birth that I've attended
has been unique.
There's no one way that's right
to birth.
It's really unique
to each individual
and their preferences.
Ultimately, the goal
is that the baby comes out.
Pregnancy never lasts forever,
and that that bond
between the birthing parent
and the baby can begin.
Some of my favorite clients
have been the queer and trans
families that I've supported.
Bearing witness to their journey
really inspired me
to pursue that path
of becoming a parent myself.
-Human pattern of childbirth
is really kind of unique,
because unlike even our closest
living relatives
like chimpanzees,
human moms typically seek help.
This is what is called
obligate midwifery.
What that means
is that it's normal in humans
to have assistance
at the time of birth.
And this pattern
is probably reflective
of the fact that we have
very difficult childbirth.
It usually takes us longer.
The process of labor
is more dangerous for humans.
-Labor is probably one of the
most physical endurance tests
that any woman
has ever had to go through.
The labor process itself
can take anywhere
from 1 or 2 hours
in a very fast case,
up to 24, 36, even longer.
Right as the baby
is about to come out,
there is that moment where
I think everyone in the room
is shocked that a head this big
can come out of an orifice
that looks so much smaller.
- Hi, you guys.
- Hey, how's it going?
-Good, thank you. How are you?
- We're good.
We just started getting
all the nursery items yesterday.
Yeah, we're excited.
-I work from home,
which is really wonderful
as a new parent.
Great. So, our time today
is really just all about
how to take care
of your newborn.
I know you're
first-time parents.
Becoming a parent
is a really pivotal time
in everybody's life.
Let's talk a little bit
about newborn appearance.
This is my daughter.
This is Rowan.
I'm so in love with her
that I just have to make sure
that she gets little moments
of glory in here.
Rowan's 4 months old,
and the first four months
of her life
have been a roller coaster ride,
but a really fun one
for the most part.
I think we had a little bit of
a leg up because I am a doula,
and I have some
of the book smarts.
On the first day of life,
baby's tummy is this big.
But, you know, she's a baby.
She's unpredictable.
There have been days that have
been really challenging,
and there have been moments
that have been really stressful.
Ultimately, she's an amazing
little person,
and I can't wait to see
who she becomes.
-Gee, I wonder what's in here.
-As a doula supporting families,
I thought that I knew
what to expect
through pregnancy and birth.
- Oh, hello.
-Welcome to our nursery.
-But ultimately, once you
go through it on your own
and have that physical
experience of gestating a baby
and a birthing a baby
-We have cute photos
and more cute photos.
- I have so much more respect
and awe
for the families that I support.
-And a cute daddy.
- I'm a trans man.
I was assigned female at birth.
I have a uterus and ovaries
and the parts to be able
to gestate a pregnancy
at the same time, be true
to myself as the man that I am.
Before I met my spouse,
I didn't have a strong sense
that I wanted to carry a baby.
- All done!
-Once I met her and started
to imagine our life together,
that's when the idea
of being a gestational dad
and carrying my baby
felt like a dream
that I could make a reality.
Yeah?
-A big piece of that
was that my spouse did not want
to carry a pregnancy.
But she has always
wanted to be a mom,
and I've always wanted
to be a dad.
Our process of getting pregnant
was pretty long.
We realized, "Okay, we have half
the equation to make a baby."
-I joke that we have
an abundance of uteri
in our relationship.
-We asked a friend of ours
to be our sperm donor.
And then from there,
I stopped taking hormones.
So, I was taking testosterone
for about seven years.
Waited for a cycle to return,
which took a little while.
And then we started doing
inter-uterine inseminations.
- It's moving its arms!
- Eventually after
several attempts,
several more months going by,
we finally did conceive.
I had a planned cesarean birth.
For me as a trans man, the idea
of giving birth vaginally
felt pretty incompatible
with my sense
of my body and myself.
In my work as a doula, I know
that cesarean rates
in the US especially
are much higher
than they need to be.
There are a lot of cesareans
that are performed
unnecessarily.
But in my case, it felt like
the right choice.
-Whether they're born through
a C-section or vaginal birth,
when a newborn first emerges
from the womb,
their body systems
are hard at work,
adjusting to life
on the outside.
The transition from fetus
to newborn involves
the most complex series
of physiologic adaptations
a human will experience
in its lifetime.
-When babies are in utero,
their lungs are filled
with fluid,
and there are certain channels
in the cardiovascular system
which are designed
to bypass their lungs,
because they get their oxygen
from the umbilical cord.
But once babies leave the womb
and everything changes,
the atmospheric pressure
in their new world
triggers a big change
in their heart and lungs.
They attempt to rid all
the fluid out of their lungs,
and their cardiovascular system
immediately undergoes changes
to accommodate this.
Their lungs slowly fill with
air, and they're able to now
live, breathe, and thrive
in their new environment.
-Before Rowan was born,
we got to the hospital
really early in the morning,
and a few hours later,
she was there.
Hi.
- Hi.
- That's a good sound.
- The actual birth
was incredible.
It was not something
I'd ever seen before.
-Hi, honey. Hi, Rowan.
- There you are.
- Hi.
- It was intense.
It was beautiful.
Seeing her little face
made it all worth it.
- Oh, is that nice
to be back with Daddy?
-You know, it made
every ache and pain
and every time I puked during
pregnancy and during birth,
it made it all worth it,
because I got to see
my little person be born.
Hi, baby.
-In the moments after birth,
a newborn will experience
hunger,
thirst, cold,
for the first time ever.
They'll be completely reliant
on those around them
for survival.
But they do have a secret weapon
to help them
adjust to life outside
the womb vernix caseosa.
This white, waxy cream
protected their skin
from amniotic fluid
inside the womb.
It contains a complex mix
of proteins,
lipids, amino acids,
and antimicrobial compounds.
It's believed to be unique
to the human species.
Outside the womb, vernix caseosa
helps prevent heat loss,
and research suggests
that its scent may help
trigger neural connections
in the newborn's brain that are
needed for breastfeeding.
-Nice, warm bottle for you.
-For us, the idea of feeding
Rowan breast milk was important.
I have had top surgery,
and so I don't have the ability
to feed Baby from my body.
We've been really privileged
to have people in our life
who are already lactating
and have pumped that milk
and donated that milk to us
to feed Rowan.
-Babies who are fed breast milk
benefit from nearly
200 different sugars
that the milk contains.
Those sugars feed the microbes
that will, over time,
help the baby develop
a healthy digestive system.
-Breast milk, the third
most common ingredient in it
is something called an HMO,
a human milk oligosaccharide.
And human milk oligosaccharides
are completely
indigestible by babies.
So why is the third most common
ingredient in breast milk
something that a baby
can't even digest?
It's because it's not there
to feed the baby.
It's there to feed
the baby's gut bacteria
and help those bacteria
to repel staph
and other potentially
dangerous bacteria.
So there's real symbiosis there
between what's going on
in the breast milk
and what's going on
in the baby's gut.
-Babies who don't breastfeed
can also benefit
from human milk oligosaccharide,
as synthetic versions are added
to some brands
of infant formula.
- All done.
All done. Nice work!
Rowan really completes
our family.
When she was born,
I feel like I already knew her.
I'd felt her kick inside of me,
and it's a really big gift
that so many dads
don't get to have.
-The assumption is that women
want to have babies,
and men can't.
Our family turns
that expectation on its head.
Now that Rowan is here,
it just doesn't really matter
how we got here.
-The experience has been
so empowering,
because it's basically
the ultimate definition
of father as protector,
and I feel like
I've played that role
from the time that Rowan
was growing inside of me.
- Regardless of
where we live in the world,
one thing that unifies all of us
is that we were all born.
We all came into this world
in much the same way.
-Why am I emotional?
Come on.
It's just birth.
I knew scientifically
there was no question
that we all started
as one cell big,
and I knew that consciousness
is something that develops.
And yet nothing could prepare me
for living through
the experience
of incubating a new human,
my little baby,
wondering, when was
she starting to think?
Is her personality
starting to develop?
-The developing brain
is fascinating.
From the first cells laid down
during fetal development,
the potential of
the human brain is vast
the capacity to learn, to feel
and empathize with others.
Humanity is locked into
those hundred million cells.
-Oh! You're smiling at yourself.
-With each generation,
the human species evolves.
-While it's hard to say
any one given baby
is going to be born perfect,
I do believe
that we have this ability
to really encourage children
to move and grow and evolve
into beings that are far better
than we were.
-And we really are
an insanely fascinating species.
You strip away everything
privilege, socioeconomics,
race, religion
We literally
are the same organisms.
We go through the exact same
physiologic struggles,
and if that doesn't
unify people,
then I have no idea
what's going to.