Why Don’t We Remember When We Were Born?
The birth is a traumatic moment.
For example, we have memories of our childhood and youth, but we are unable to recall the most important moment in life, namely our birth. Why? Today we will explain the reasons for you.
1. Nerve cell formation during the first years of life
The birth is a traumatic moment. Stranger hands then take the baby out of the warm, cozy cave into the cold, noisy world. In no other place do you feel so safe and loved, life outside usually begins with tears and pain.
What does a baby feel during birth, pain, fear, joy and curiosity? Unfortunately, we cannot remember this important moment. The reason for this is the so-called nerve cell formation (neurogenesis).
The strongest cell growth takes place in the brain shortly before birth until a few days afterwards. New neurons replace the existing stem or precursor cells in an intensive and high-energy process. Amazed?
Then why do we forget? Don’t our memories and learning processes depend on the neurons? Doesn’t the growth of neurons actually mean greater memory?
This is different for newborns and in the first few months of life. Memories do not stay in the memory because cell renewal is too intense. Structures overlap and memories disappear as new cells emerge.
The memories are not stable because the constant growth is too fast. This process stabilizes after 5-6 months. The formation of neurons loses intensity. From this point on, the memories remain.
After the age of 6 or 7, the process is reversed and neurons start to disappear. The evolutionary process is most intense between the ages of 1 and 5.
At this age children are like sponges, they absorb everything and are even able to learn several languages. However, they have long since forgotten the first days of their lives.
2. Language and memory after birth
Many doctors and psychologists assure that we can only remember those things that we can also describe with words.
Test yourself, try to remember your first experience. Probably it is a sensation, a smell or a situation: your mother is holding you in her arms, a walk in the park … At that time you could probably already pronounce the first words.
In many experiments it has been found that it is easier to remember things that can be put into words. The brain organizes and stores everything in the hippocampus.
This structure is strongly related to memory. The ability to speak is also related to our memory, so that both are logically related.
Therefore, it is very difficult to remember such an intense moment as the birth because we could not put our thoughts into words at the time.
Even so, amazingly, there are people who can remember small sections and vague sensations of their birth. Do you belong to these people? Tell us your story.
