Life before Birth and A Time to Be Born

The most valuable investment any society makes is in its children, the next generation. The more we learn about the fetus the better we are able to understand the problems and abnormalities that can occur during development. Dr. Peter Nathanielsz, the first to demonstrate that the fetal brain delivers the signals that start the process of birth, reviews the recent explosion of information on fetal development during the second half of pregnancy. How genes store the blueprint for fetal development is explained, as well as the intricacies of the development and function of the major organ systems, the placenta, lungs, heart, and brain.