Reflection essay

This assignment is a reflection on the following topics:
Heredity and genetics
Prenatal development and birth
Infancy

ANSWER

Heredity comprises the passing of traits from parents to offspring through asexual or sexual reproduction. Genetics then becomes the study of how heritable some traits are and their likelihood of being transferred to offspring from parents. Heredity conceptualises both negative, positive and neutral traits. For instance, if the parent has blue eyes, then it is likely the offspring will have blue eyes which do not affect the individual. However, if a parent has cancer, and it is established that the cancer is hereditary, it becomes a risk by default to produce offspring. On a larger scale, heredity determines the cause of a species after very many years as observed in Charles Darwin’s theories like Evolution and Natural Selection.

There are three periods to prenatal development, the germinal stage, the embryonic period and the fetal period. The study of this period resonates more with Feud who believed that these parts of growth each had an impact on what the person would be in terms of thoughts, inclinations, addiction and personality. For health practitioners, theses stages consists of pre-pregnancy, pregnancy, labour and delivery are vital to the health of both the mother and the baby.

Infancy also resonates with Feuds growth and development theories like Stages of Psychosexual Development. He believed that early experiences play a vital role in the development of personality and continue to influence it throughout individual life. It also suggested that by age five, personality has already been established where if all the psychosexual stages are fulfilled, a healthy personality is acquired. If not, a fixation occurs and persists where the person could remain in this stage indefinitely. It is this fixation that could bring up problems later in life such as an over-dependence and addiction to drugs.