Start the baby chitchat sooner: 16-week-old fetuses respond to music, study finds
Fetuses react to music played through their mother's body by opening their mouths and pulling their tongues out as far as possible, say Spanish researchers
Expectant parents are often told to start speaking to their unborn child about 23 weeks into the pregnancy as that's when the fetus can hear voices and other sounds. But a new study by Spanish researchers shows a fetus' hearing ability to begin much earlier - at just 16 weeks.
Emitting music through a special device inserted in the mother's vagina, the researchers from Institut Marquès, a gynaecology and fertility clinic in Barcelona, found that fetuses heard and responded to the musical stimulus by opening their mouths and pulling their tongues out as far as possible, making vocalisation movements.
“We have discovered that the formula for fetuses to hear like us is to emit music from the mother’s vagina. They barely hear the sound that reaches them through their mother’s abdomen: the soft tissues of the abdomen and the inside of the mother’s body absorb the soundwaves," says Dr Marisa López-Teijón, the head of assisted reproduction at Institut Marquès and the principal researcher and author of the study published this week in the British Medical Ultrasound Society journal Ultrasound.
The researchers say the music emitting device, which was specially developed for the study, enables fetal deafness to be ruled out. It also makes ultrasound scans easier and reduces the stress of parents during pregnancy.
"For the first time, we have been able to communicate with the fetus. From the 16th week, it is capable of responding to musical stimuli," says López-Teijón. "We can say that learning begins in the womb."