The unborn child’s first movements of body, arms and legs occur seven weeks after conception but the mother does not feel these movements.

Yes, it’s science. So much happens in terms of development before birth. Geraldine Lux Flanagan writes in her book Beginning Life: The Marvelous Journey from Conception to Birth : “A gentle face with open eyes greets us in the seventh week, photographed by a miniature camera looking into the womb. The embryo’s hands touch the face with stubby fingers ; the high forehead is testimony to the prominent human brain.”

On page 52, we read: “The embryo slowly and gracefully begins to bend and extend its arms and kegs, turns its head from side to side, swings the whole body to and fro, and sometimes stretches from head to toe.”

In an 1980 educational reprint of the April 30th, 1965 issue of Life magazine, Life reports:The birth of a human life really occurs at the moment the mother’s egg cell is fertilized by one of the father’s sperm cells.”

Action Life’s resource centre has the 1980 reprints of this supplement containing amazing photos of prenatal development taken by Swedish photographer Lennart Nilsson. The book by Geraldine Lux Flanagan is also available.