Marcey Shapiro, MD

The heart of a human embryo is one of the first recognizable structures formed. The embryo is initially a flat pancake-like grouping of three layers of cells: endoderm, ectoderm, and mesoderm. These layers give rise to all the tissues of the body.

The cardiovascular system begins to develop early on, while the embryo is still flat. The heart arises from the center of these layers, the mesoderm. The area that will become the heart is called the cardiogenic region. It begins to form in the third week of fetal development. By day 22 the heart is “spontaneously” beating.

The scientific answer that this occurs “spontaneously” is not very satisfying, because it is clearly not happenstance. The timing is exact. Nature clearly sees the establishment of a beating heart as an essential initial step that occurs as part of an exquisitely ordered sequence in the generation of life. It is important to note that the heart is not necessary to provide biochemical nutrients for the tiny embryo. In its first two weeks the embryo receives its nourishment from the yolk sac. After implantation in the uterine wall, the placenta forms, and fetal circulation and nutrient delivery, especially early on, is entirely dependent upon the mother. And when the heart begins to beat, at day 22, it does not yet have chambers or a circulatory system into which it could pump blood. So why is the tiny beating heart of the three-week-old embryo so important to the project of life? Could it be that the beating heart provides a different, but still essential, type of nourishment?

By acknowledging an underlying spiritual non-physical reality, it is easier to see what is happening during early fetal development. The heart is physically and metaphorically the direct pathway to and from the inner being. Most of us already understand or trust that there is a sacred magic in this primary process. Perhaps what actually happens is the heart begins to beat in response to an impulse originating from the infinite reservoir of life-force. The beating heart is a link, at our core, between the physical and the non-physical, resonating to the rhythms of both. The heartbeat arises in a minute flat cluster of cells to resound in tune with great cosmic forces that organize physical life.

This “Transforming Health” inspiration is from Marcey Shapiro, MD, Integrative Medicine Physician 

Excerpted from Transforming the Nature of Health: A Holistic Vision of Healing That Honors Our Connection to the Earth, Others, and Ourselves by Marcey Shapiro, MD, North Atlantic Books, copyright © 2012 Marcey Shapiro. Reprinted by permission of publisher.

Stay tuned for more thoughts from Marcey Shapiro, MD, on “Transforming Health” and Heart Centered Living.