Your Baby's First Year: What You Need to Know (Part 2 of 2)

Healy look to my son Joshua in the present moment where he truly was a moment of light and those he smiled and there was see this shine in his eyes's brightness I had not seen for a long time truly powerful moment for moment. Why was Judge Ward. At this time and I kind of meeting before this moment that sucked Robert Hamilton talking about how the birth of his first son brought tremendous hope to a tragic family situation. This is focus on the family your hostess focus Pres. Jim Daly and I'm John Fuller, John babies are such an amazing example of God's handiwork and obviously babies and kids have a Special Pl. in God's heart that we saw that when Jesus got upset at the disciples for not letting the children come to him and not only does God say in his word that we should be more like children in our relationship with him. He says he knows us from the very beginning of our lives, from the very moment were conceived. That's pretty incredible and that's why were so passionate about the pro-life movement here. Focus on the family and why were celebrating pre-born babies through RC life 2020 event that's coming next month. That's September 26 and you can find out more about the free online sea life 2020 events.

When you click the link in the episode show notes and today John looking forward to sharing the rest of our conversation with Dr. Robert Hamilton as he moves into the more scientific side of his profession, digging into why he used to be pro-choice in the amazing details of the babies development. If you missed anything from that first part of our conversation. Be sure to stop by the website. Check us out on the YouTube channel pulls up on the app or look for the podcast.

As I mentioned last time Dr. Hamilton has over three decades of experience as a pediatrician even more experience as a dad six and grandfather of nine and is the author of the book called seven secrets of the newborn secrets and happy surprises of the first year we got copies of that.

Of course at our website.

Dr. Bob is perhaps best known as the creator of the Hamilton hold which is a special way to calm a crying baby and we got a video of him demonstrating that hold at the website. Let's go ahead and join the conversation now days episode.

The focus on the Dr. Bob welcome back think John is supposedly in order to demonstrate on the focus website that Hamilton hold and you tell me that it's good for really small babies. It's not for teenagers to have a different routine.

I'm in the lab trying to do that here or fight it out when I get that when I truly go viral.

I bet you might have 60 million less.

My goal had always been passionate for babies. In fact, understand that you considered yourself pro-choice and I don't know that it's fair to equate the two, but you were more pro-choice in med school. Why were you in that spot and how did you come around to rethinking it should address a great question and actually causes me to become a reflect on that transition because the reality is, it was a culture that I was in the culture of medical school culture of medicine in general today is that abortion is part of the landscape. When Roe V Wade happened in 1973 I was a young man I had other things on my mind I wasn't I wasn't on my radar wasn't like I really thought through the issue that carefully.

So part of me falling into the pool pro-choice camp if you will was really wanted by default. It wasn't like he was very intentional wasn't really thought through and that was something that I ultimately ended up you know, dealing with a bit later on in my training yeah I would think in med school. Particularly, that would've been kind of everybody was moving that direction. Professors were bribed very insistent or at least told people what their views were and it probably fell 80% or more toward a pro-choice perspective. I don't know but oh no, it's very high and I think that listen when I got into medical school.

I was it was a decade later, and the fact is, is that you know that was kind of the way it was remembered during my OB/GYN rotation is a third-year medical student. We were, dividing up our responsibilities and I was told that I was good to go to a tab and I did what a tab was but II learned that it was a therapeutic abortion and so the reality is that first fall, the language that abortion is uses oftentimes shrouded in nuances that if they're not always clear language. Yes I know and so I think about tab there was actually a a soda at one point called tab right and I got okay tabby okay whatever.

I went to that I would. I remember going as a third-year student and I watched an abortion.

I remember walking out of the room, thinking this didn't feel right.

I felt very heavy it felt. I remember walking out very sad and you know, here I am not really really thinking through and I think a lot of people don't really think through the issue and so that was me, but I had to think that date because II saw one and I'm thinking you went there was another life that entered that room and is no longer with us and I remember looking at that woman and you know she wasn't happy.

You know she was going through a procedure which was invasive to her number one and I'm only I did talk to her.

No winded right was, like, don't talk to her because we don't know what she's thinking.

But I know that I know looking at her face I could tell that this was, not something she was proud of that.

Something she was happy about what so amazing and this is a big battle in the culture.

When you look at it right now.

I'm sure back in 73 maybe politicians once it's declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court argument over but there's something intrinsically wrong. At the very core and that's why this continues.

This contest of moral ideas. I think that one level abortion is illogical.

You know when you think about it.

One of things that I'm concerned, but I'd love to get your perspective as a pediatrician for the abortion industry must just and Planned Parenthood probably does a little more than about 1/3 of the abortions in this country over 300,000 a year and it's amazing to me that they've been able to divide women from that natural God-given desire to be that nurturing person speak to that. That to me is a profound and dark achievement.

While it is and part of it is the fact that they is considered to be okay is considered to be something that you, sometimes if you like to have to do.

Women are conflicted this is and I don't know and I know many people who have among women who had abortions and Google tell you even before or after their change of heart. The terms of their faith, they were conflicted. Way back when.

And so you're right. I think that the groups Planned Parenthood is mean is number one what the been able to do is obfuscate the truth and they been able to hide the truth.

One of the ways that you know you can shutdown an abortionist, or even you know these people is you say what do are you doing tell me what you do, tell me the process as you go through when you have an abortion when you actually when they they won't articulate that, though never come back to you and say hide it. They have to hydrogen have to hide because if he actually said here is what we do and they go through the process because it is a process. Kate is a procedure when they do that is terribly damning, terribly damning, so that's what happened.

We've have been able to hide the truth. I will tell you that you know now that a lot of the pregnancy centers be a resource and data scarcities there beginning to actually have ultrasounds in them and they can show people. Okay this is what your baby looks like you can you can see it and this is not a blob. It is not a tissue.

It is a real human being uniquely different than any other human being that is ever been in the face of the year that it's so exciting. We been doing that option all percent program for 15 years now and you know I just am so proud of these pregnancy resource clinics that a lot of them work on a shoestring budget. A lot of volunteers very loving and kind, mostly women, who are out there trying to help women make the best choice that can make which is to give your baby life even if you have to give that baby up for adoption and I I am. I'm just so proud of them and here's a stat that so amazing. I member meeting with the Planned Parenthood representative and they said it's on average about $600 to do an abortion or focus on the family. You can save a baby's life for $60. That program, I mean that's what's so amazing and I hope people would get on board with us and help us.

I would love to see another 600,000 babies saved by 2025 that what were saying is, a million alive by 2025 would never be awesome and I just am excited about this and so many people are realizing especially young people that abortion is not right and moral. In fact, 61% get this Dr. Bob 61%. In a recent Marist poll said that, and these are abortion minded people 61% said abortion after the first trimester is not right.

These are abortion minded people think of that now. We believe in life from conception and so were not in a differentiate between the second third trimester pregnancy in the first trimester, but the point is, even they don't agree with late-term abortion or second term abortion, so I set a lot there what you want to respond to.

I think when people know people think about and I think it's a neat and human beings. And I think that human beings and they really look at the truth and they really understand what is happening. It will change their mind. By the way, my transformation is one here that is the what happened to me as I was in my training I was doing my new new intensive care rotation and we were doing all that we could deceive you know children who were 24, 25, 26, 27 weeks gestation closes the NICU.

Yeah, I was in the NICU and I spent hours and hours and they view it out overnight and weekends everything and so we on one end of the hallway were spending great resources hundreds of thousands of dollars to preserve and save the life of the lovely child on the other end of the hall.

There were babies being aborted the same gestational age and so that was the beginning of my transformation that I had and basically what happened, John and Jim as I got educated. I learned something I actually good okay what is it all about, and after a while I said you know what I have to proclaim who I am I I am not I'm not pro-choice. I am pro-life and I did things I actually was a movie called the silent screen which was put up by cutting Bernard Nathanson, one of the early pro-life films very early. I met Dr. Nathanson and I brought that film to UCLA showed it to the residence unless you that took some guts I got you know by grade-point average went down. At that point, but because some of the professors showed up and they sat in the back and they were glum and they were angry and they couldn't respond because if you remember that film which showed actually you know an ultrasound of a child being aborted and Bernard Nathanson just for those that don't remember him.

He was pro-abortion. He was the beginning of NARAL. The national abortion rights league and he was one of the strategic thinkers of the pediatrician who helped pioneer abortion, and then he flipped.

He flipped in it.

I think of it, he and by the way he incurred the absolute anger and seriousness of that gentle a culture but he got a traitor to them. He was a traitor and but he was also a person who love truth and he was interesting guy and you know what that film change a lot of lives in a deftly change my thinking about it and went to the medical students there were going on wow and that's what yes it definitely is a brick you know represented a total change of my feeling about this issue let's move to the miracle of the baby's development because again I just it puts a smile on my face. The Lord knitting this child together and the mother's womb at talk to us about how miraculous each life is you say there are millions of things going on literally during every moment of pregnancy describe what's happening for that baby sure and that it's a joy for me to do that will first of all, that one of the beginning is the conception. Conception is a moment where that joining together of the egg and the sperm is that moment of time in time where a new individual is actually being the template is there that I will tell you that if you this is something I mentioned in my book is that that moment.

It actually has a little bit of fireworks with it doesn't does it does, and in fact there is actually a burst of light that happens is right. True. And people who do in vitro fertilization have been saying this and what think there's a thing called a sink burst and so when the conception happens. There is actually a burst of light literally true light that happens as a result of this egress visit ingress of calcium liens and there is an egress of zinc ions. The kind of come out of this. Is this like there is actually a little bit of a flash of light and amazing, given the Scripture as the light of the world ate and were made in his image is a house full thing and I tell people that this is like, you know that in heaven there is his glory and and actually this event. The spark of light has been going on in the fallopian tubes of women for forever I I actually spoke with the research of this is actually relatively new information and I spoke the researcher who actually discovered this and I said what it feel like when you actually saw this burst and she said I literally got goosebumps that I see and I said what a wonderful way to herald a new life is what happens after that will after that, I mean this concept. This begins the kind of divide very quickly.

These daughter cells happening kinda tumbles down of the fallopian tube eventually that the more you let, we call it. It attaches itself to the wall of the uterus and then division you know you form of the placenta you form the CEO.

All these things are going on and amazingly so quickly.

You know you're talking about a heart beating in weeks Friday a heart is form lungs before rudimentary within the first really the first trimester of their child's life. Five.

Six weeks right.

Everything's there right above the primordial brain. Everything's already there is is truly an amazing thing.

And then after you know that really the later stages of development are just simply growing the child is getting bigger bigger bigger neurons of course are multiplying. They were born were born with 100 you ready for this 100 billion neurons hundred doing thereof that many scars, billion, billion, that's a big number. I that's not quite our national debt but but a big number and that's only in the brain of a newborn child is that miraculous event has amazing so you know from consumptive stew of full-term nine-month-old child who comes out in his breathing in and you know looking around eyeballs years no touch and taste all these things have been formed miraculously in the womb, sick, incredible, incredible phenomena, and that is great you know I was especially fascinated by the fact that babies can taste here, smell and, challenge this one a little bit recognize faces seriously think I'm either inside the womb, they can't see her face came in. Will he do the study in England where they were able to without damaging the child, the Rashi able to show dots okay when they show dots in certain patterns. These fetuses would actually turn toward those particular patterns and the patterns that they turned toward were the pattern of the human face out so they can recognize a human face. There's something there turning toward Jim. There is something innately inborn in the child and happening in utero with her, looking at the looking at faces there looking for mommy is zombie even before they even you don't get out editing say the word Bobby and that to me is a phenomena and that I I can't explain it's beautiful, hey, you have a beautiful story about what you called a powerful comment, you heard it at a bar mitzvah, tell us what you heard. That made such an impact on you so II have a a large Jewish contingent my practice and I'm frequently asked for the bar mitzvahs and bat mitzvahs and so II try to go and this young man was 13, he was reading the Torah and before the whole ceremony began. The mother's that up in the synagogue and she looked around and she's very articulate woman and she said you know I'm looking around here and she was little older mother. By the way, and she says I looking around I knew 20% of you before we had a child in a silly family and friends, but she goes I think about what my son Ryan has brought to my life. Not only has he brought the joy of having a child, but his broad overview and it was a very touching moment.

I thought wow this is profound. This is what children do to our lives, they bring us to new dimensions. Part of those dimensions include people that is Vander world expand our world in such a beautiful way. So it really kinda resonated with me.

I heard that I thought wow this is a profound moment.

Mind you she was tearful. She was crying because of how what this meant to her and that is a beautiful reminder of the benefit of children you do end up in a sporting event you meet new people. I mean, that's certainly true for Gina is that you're free. Absolutely yes our circle of friends is expended exponentially since we had kids right yeah you give new parents several circle back to the kind of the beginning yes not the end, like where I'm at but back to the beginning you give parents several important notes for that first year and you say the key to the first month of the baby's life is to let the child lead the way and I got what about what kind of lead the way you actually do a completely but what you want to do is the first month is a month that I call it should be in extravaganza of love, a I: skin to skin extravaganza and what that means is you know the first month of life, and by the way in other cultures around the world.

They have this thing called Rio rooming in her lying in in Asia. They don't let the mothers out of the house for a full month and you can even to be with the child, just to be with the child and let them of on cover and so part of it is getting to know, that child realize that this is a new entity in your life and they know every kid is different and letting them establish their patterns, their feeding their sleeping and all the other patterns let them cut out. Let's see what happens now.

I like there is a word I do engage called nudge is a gentle word and you're not forcing them into any kind of a rigidity of the schedule you're letting them cut a fall into what you're watching your kid and your loving your child, but you can nudge them a little bit. You can comment during the day. For example, you want to nudge him awake because they need to don't want them awake at night tonight and I I tell people you need to have a conversation with her with your newborn here and say you're one of us. You hero your human being and I know you bit where you came from. Baby had a different schedule up there, but now you're here okay and here's how we do it we eat and we were awake during the day we sleep and we don't eat at night and so you can nudge them into that pattern, and thus, what I mean by letting them letting them kinda like guide you to a degree that the corollary I tell us about the time you took your newborn son to visit your father-in-law. What did you learn from that experience powerful moment to know my father-in-law tragically was stricken with colon cancer at a young age. I have to say, and he knew lessee was pregnant and so I could tell he was holding on.

You could see that in his eyes, we would visit them during her pregnancy he was holding on for the to see her. His grandson and it happened he she we delivered and as soon as we possibly could and went to his bedside and I'll never forget that you know listened. This was the sad moment in his life he was hooked up diabetes and he could have eaten their chemotherapy lives not a good situation. So we walked into that room with my father lie here he was, he was in a in a desperate time and he looked at Josh when he said he was able to my son Joshua in the present moment where he truly it was a moment of delight and it was. He smiled and there was a this shine in his eyes. This brightness I had not seen for a long time truly powerful moment for him. It was a moment even though I was just worn at this time and I kind of maybe maybe for this moment that says it all right there is greater purpose for the beginning and the end the Alpha and the Omega minutes the start of life and the end of life and were all in it will live.

That was it was a moment I'll never forget moment clearly that I motion about, and a moment that their big things happening in life that we that we don't really see and I think this was one of an example of that for us for sure. Dr. Bob again, thank you for being with us. I love seeing your heart. It's great when you're in this everyday is a pediatrician to still have such tenderness toward what you do. I like that.

Thanks you.

What a beautiful story to end our two-part broadcast with Dr. Robert Hamilton on focus on the family, Jon.

I love how Dr. Bob use that story about his father-in-law to point to the truth that every life has a purpose. The Bible has so many verses confirming that that one of them is in Psalm 139 which says every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was written out before any of them came to be there reminds me of a story we heard from a listener mom. This mom was doing some pro-life work and had some focus material sitting around her house. Some brochures that show pictures of pre-born babies in one night that mom noticed that her teen daughter was looking at those brochures carefully and she later found out that the teen daughter was pregnant and that those brochures changed everything that night I had an important schedule for the next morning mom.

I had called him on the time to find out what to expect a colony I would have an injection end, I would have a spontaneous miscarriage that would be my abortion mom and I saw that picture on the table at the baby.

It was just six weeks old.

Developing in mama's warm.

I think God was creating a baby in my womb for a purpose and I you and I cannot and my baby's life.

Wisdom from a young woman. This is exactly why we started our option ultrasound ministry that I've been mentioning throughout the program also mentioned the stat of 60% of women who are moved to choose life when they see their baby on that ultrasound screen and I think the ultrasound gives women help that God does have a greater purpose for the life of their baby option.

Ultrasound is completely funded by passionate pro-life donors like you and right now a few of those donors are asking you to step up they will match every dollar given to the ministry that is saved over 459,000 babies lives.

Would you consider giving that $60 gift to save a babies life and spare a woman's heart from abortion.

One thing that many do is to give $60 a month to do exactly that. So either way at one time gift or a monthly gift will do so much to help a woman make the right decision, and when you donate to option ultrasound today were to send a copy of Dr. Hamilton's book 7 secrets of the newborn to say thank you for your support. You can donate and get the book and find out about sea life 2020 hour September 26 event, we got the link in the episode ship's.

Be sure to listen in. Next time as a woman who walked out husband shares first reconciliation and I finally made a decision that I was sleeping and I wasn't doing it only chessmen to see what he would do to really get his attention now have. I was done I was totally totally finished on behalf of Jim Bailey and the entire team.

Thanks for joining us today for focus on the family. I'm John Fuller inviting you back.

As we once again help your family thrive in Christ