Many children are traumatized during a pregnancy. Even today.
But does that make them better slaves? does that make newborns easier to control?
As for whether that makes them better slaves, ...I couldn't say, ...but I will say it makes them far more susceptible to and motivated by fear.
I'm talking about physiology and the growing fetus. You CAN hardwire a brain to ensure certain signals or certain pathways are stronger than others. Just like any other muscle, ...if you exercise it, ...it becomes stronger. I am aware that many children are traumatized in utero, ...however, what I refer to is repeated systematic traumatization, ...not someone jumping out from behind a potted plant and yelling "Surprise" to a pregnant woman. I'm referring to nightly traumatization of a pregnant woman and by osmosis her offspring. A child raised in such an environment is going to have their neurons hardwired for fear.
I wasn't refering to control over newborns, ...if you can't control a newborn (except for crying), you got problems. I'm talking about the reptillian brain.
It's the same with languages. If you teach a child a language as an infant, he can go years without using it, may even forget 99.9% or even 100% of it, ...but re-introduce that language in later years and the child will pick it up much easier than if s/he were becoming familiar with it for the 1
st time.
Look at a tree, ...the 1
st branches that start to grow, ...over time, usually end up being the biggest and strongest branches. Well the pathways to the brain aren't really all that different. Granted, it's a very simplistic analogy, but it conveys my meaning.