Pregnancy – The Beginning of Life
The passing on of life from parent to child is one of the greatest privileges that come to men and women. Seeing one's children grow and develop is one of life's great satisfactions. A parent delights in the observation that his child is like himself.
With the privilege of parenthood comes responsibility for the child's welfare.
A-parent's care of the child does much to determine how strong and healthy the child will be.
A parent's influence on the child, both by word and example, does much to determine what the child's intellect and character will be.
This passing on of life from one generation to the next has physical components as well as philosophical. In this section we are concerned mostly with the physical components of parenthood.
We shall begin our study of the human body and human relationships with conception, the beginning of life, which occurs nine months before the birth of a baby.
Conception
Six-year-old Sally questioned her mother: "Mamma, why did you tell the neighbour lady that baby brother Edward looks like Daddy? Daddy wasn't even here when Edward was born. He was on a trip to Chicago. Remember?" Obviously Sally was not yet acquainted with the facts of life. The actual beginning of a human life dates back nine months before birth to the occasion when the father and mother shared in making available the sex cells which, as they combined, provided the biological elements from which a new human life is formed.
In terms of the inherited traits parents pass on to their children, the father's influence is as great as the, mother's; each parent has contributed one sex cell. The two cells unite to form a single cell from which the entire body of the child develops. From conception onward to the time of birth the mother's relationship to the child is more important than that of the father, for it is within her body that the child develops. But in terms of parenthood, embracing the responsibility for bringing the child into existence, a child's father and mother are involved equally.
Sex Cells and Their Origins Sex cells are different from other body cells. A sex cell has just one function to perform and that is to pass on, by union with a cell from the partner in marriage, the spark of life from this generation to the next.
Male sex cells are produced in the testes-a man's essential sex organs.
Female sex cells are produced in the ovaries. Early in the life history of a human being-even before the time of his own birth-a certain bit of living tissue was set aside, as it were, for purposes of later parenthood.
In a boy, this highly specialized tissue developed into the testes. Even during childhood immature male sex cells are present in the testes. But only as a boy reaches early manhood do these sex cells become mature enough to enable him to be a father. Beginning at this time (by early teens) a young man's testes produce enormous numbers of sex cells. The testes remain active in producing sex cells throughout the years of a man's physical prime. Of course, most of them perish, for it takes only one male sex cell to unite with a female sex cell at the time of conception to initiate the life of a child.
A. The testis in relation to the other organs of the male.
B. A cross-section view of one of the tubules within the testis which produce male sex
cells.
C. An enlargement of a portion of the tubule in B showing how the sex cells be·
come mature before they leave the testis.
D. One male sex cell enlarged
In the case of a girl, the life perpetuating tissue is built into the ovaries-small glands located, one on the right and one on the left, within the lower abdominal cavity. The immature female sex cells contained in the ovaries lie dormant throughout the years of a girl's childhood.
As a girl arrives at young womanhood, changes occur each month in the ovaries. Although there are thousands of immature sex cells, only a few respond each month to the influence of the hormones and. as they respond, grow rapidly. These few seem to compete with each other for a chance to arrive at full maturity and be liberated from the ovary. Usually only one out of the several is released during a particular month.
This one female sex cell as it reaches full maturity is located within a blister like structure on the ovary’s surface.
At just the right time this breaks open and the sex cell it contains escapes into the abdominal cavity. Remarkably, it is not lost here but is guided into the open end of the oviduct, a tube leading to the uterus.
The female sex cell is propelled through the oviduct toward the uterus by a multitude of microscopic fingers which have the effect of sweeping the sex cell on its way. While the female sex cell is passing through the oviduct, it becomes available for union with a male sex cell if sexual intercourse has occurred at this time. If no male sex cells are available the female cell passes on into the uterus and soon perishes. if it does unite with a male sex cell so that a new life is begun, the combined cell makes its way slowly through the remainder of the oviduct and lodges in the uterus where, in nine months, it develops into a full-term baby.
