Page 92 - Consciousness in the Cell

CONSCIOUSNESS IN THE CELL
HOW GREAT A MIRACLE IT ISTO BREATHE!

From the moment you were born, you've been breathing with
ease and, as a result, have been able to continue your existence. If
you stop breathing for only a few minutes, this will lead to the ces-
sation of all of your bodily functions and most possibly, to your
death. Your very life depends upon a substance known as a sur-
factant, found in your lungs.
This substance envelops the roughly 300 million tiny air sacs,
or alveoli, that let the lungs take in oxygen. Surfactant helps in the
opening and closing of these sacs every time you breathe—no
easy task.
One very important feature of this substance is that it starts
being produced only one month before a person is born. And here
begins the miraculous nature of this event.
How is it that a baby, who hasn't used its lungs while in its
mother's womb, can foresee the difficulty of breathing when it
comes out into the world—and then feel the need to start produc-
ing this substance? How does it know that the surfactant is able to
help its alveoli? What type of chemical knowledge can it use to
estimate its help in the movement of these sacs?
The absence of this substance—as in babies born premature-
ly—can lead to an infant's death in a very short time. But this sel-
dom happens. For millions of years, every full-term newborn has
emerged from the womb with lungs coated in this substance,
enabling it to breathe with ease.
Undoubtedly this miraculous event is not realized through the
will of the baby, nor through the intent of the mother. The One
Who created this perfect system and Who allows it to be initiated
at just the right time is God.

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