A Child Is Born Nilsson, Lennart

About the Author Lennart Nilsson, long been considered the world's leading medical and scientific photographer has contributed to Life, Time, National Geographic, Reader's Digest, and other leading magazines worldwide. His books have sold millions of copies and have been translated into twenty languages. He is the recipient of two Emmys for his film The Saga of Life and TV series The Miracle of Life. Nilsson has an honorary MD from the prestigious Karolinska Institute, Sweden, awarded for his scientific discoveries. Lars Hamberger is Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Goteborg University in Sweden, and heads a laboratory and university clinic that is one of Europe's leading centers for research in human reproduction. Product Description This completely revised edition of the beloved international classic is now entirely in color, with historic, never-before-seen photos in every chapter and an entirely new text. From the Inside Flap This completely revised edition of the beloved international classic is now entirely in color, with historic, never-before-seen photos in every chapter and an entirely new text. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Chapter 1 Woman and Man Love—desire—longing. Sexual desire at its simplest is a biological drive, designed to ensure reproduction and the survival of our species, ideally with the best possible gene pool. Desire can be primitive, but also complex—as when two people fall in love. Love and sex bring us closer together, in body as well as spirit, instilling a feeling of deep connection. The chemistry of love It all begins in the brain, with that tiny, magical spark of first attraction. Something about another person tugs at us: their looks, their charisma, the sound of their voice, the way they carry themselves, or the way they smell. It could be a glint in the eye, a lingering glance, or an infectious laugh. Or maybe it is just that the time is right, for us or for our biological clock. Whatever the cause, our attraction has real physical effects. We blush and stammer. Our palms sweat. We feel a tingling in our veins, butterflies in our stomach. When it comes to attraction and our choice of partner, our biology and chemistry probably affect us more than we know. The chemistry of love involves a host of substances: dopamine, noradrenaline, serotonin, oxytocin, vasopressin, cortisol, pheromones, and especially the sex hormones estrogen and testosterone. Testosterone in men and estrogen in women transmit complicated chemical messages. These hormones affect our appearance and feelings and are essential to the reproduction process. Like sexual desire, the longing for a child is a powerful, primal drive in women and men alike. In nature, almost all reproductive processes rely on one male and one female parent. This is true in both the plant and the animal kingdoms, which means it is true for humans as well. Conceiving a human baby requires a mature and viable egg from a woman and a mature and viable sperm from a man, although this may or may not be reflected in the actual partner relationship or the makeup of the family-to-be. For many couples, a child is the natural consequence of what began with attraction, then became passion, and finally grew into love. The human code All human beings belong to the biological species homo sapiens, with a shared genetic code that distinguishes us, for example, from apes, from pigs, and from birds. The great apes, chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans are our closest relations; our genetic codes differ only marginally from theirs. We are also genetically very similar to swine, or the porcine family. The differences from one human being to the next are even smaller, measurable in tenths of a percent, but they are still big enough to make each individual unique. We now know that even identical twins carry tiny genetic differences. Human beings of the same descent are genetically very similar; the closest likeness is amon