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Podcast: New Books in Medicine
Episode: Sarah S. Richardson, "The Maternal Imprint: The Contested Science of Maternal-Fetal Effects" (U Chicago Press, 2021)
Description: The idea that a woman may leave a biological trace on her gestating offspring has long been a commonplace folk intuition and a matter of scientific intrigue, but the form of that idea has changed dramatically over time. Beginning with the advent of modern genetics at the turn of the twentieth century, biomedical scientists dismissed any notion that a mother--except in cases of extreme deprivation or injury--could alter her offspring's traits. Consensus asserted that a child's fate was set by a combination of its genes and post-birth upbringing.Over the last fifty years, however, this consensus was...