All pregnant women know that it is necessary to talk to the baby in the womb, since this is beneficial for the babies, because they, being in the mother's belly, hear a lot. In this article, we will tell you how hearing develops in the fetus, when he begins to hear for real, and what exactly he listens in the womb.
Embryogenesis of the hearing organs
The process of forming the hearing organs in a baby is one of the most difficult. At 4-5 weeks of pregnancy (when the mother is just starting to delay her period), the embryo appears in the embryo, which will later become the inner ear. At 7-8 weeks of gestation, structures of the middle ear begin to form. The outer ear is finally formed in the third trimester, and the cartilaginous tissue of the ears hardens shortly before delivery.
Until the fifth month of pregnancy, a very important process of laying and forming the structures of the inner ear lasts. The maze is completely hard by the 18th week of pregnancy. The ear bones begin to harden around 3 months of gestation, and this process ends closer to delivery.
The outer ear, even at birth, is imperfect. The ear canal remains soft, and its final design is completed only during the first year of the baby's life.
Since the process of hearing embryogenesis in a child has not yet been fully understood and is very multi-stage, at any of the stages an unforeseen situation may arise, which can lead to the birth of a baby with impaired auditory functions.
The ability to hear
The baby gets the ability to hear in the womb at 15 weeks of gestation. It is by this moment that the main stages of the laying of the inner ear are completed and the processes of forming the middle ear are already underway. At first, the baby's perception of sounds is not the same as ours. He hears them, but the cerebral cortex has not yet matured and is not able to analyze the signals. Fetal hearing at 15-16 weeks of gestation is more reminiscent of the auditory perception of the world by reptiles. With his inner ear he picks up only the vibration that sound waves create..
The pounding of my mother’s heart is one vibration, the loud sound of a heavy object falling next to my mother or the ringing of the alarm clock is a completely different vibration.
Mom's voice already has a special meaning for the baby, since his vibrations are different from the voices of other people.
Hearing almost like us, the baby begins only at 26-27 weeks of pregnancy. This means that at this time, the fetus no longer just hears, but reacts to sound. He gradually learns not only to hear something, but also to analyze what he has heard. The newborn turns the head towards the sound source. This he learned in the womb.
For the last three months of intrauterine development, the baby listens to sounds with pleasure. Hearing for him in the third trimester is another way of knowing the world around him.
What do you hear?
Not everything is heard by the baby. It is naive to believe that in his mother's womb he dwells in silence and grace, enjoying the voice of his mother, who reads him fairy tales. In the womb, the noise level is almost like in a small factory, and in it the baby simply cannot physically perceive all sounds from the outside. He constantly hears the noise of blood flow in the vessels, the breathing of his mother, the peristalsis of her intestines, the beating of her heart.
If mom speaks, he hears her voice well. In the later stages of pregnancy, the fetus already senses the mood of its mother by the timbre and strength of her voice. If the future parent screams, the baby starts to worry. The child reacts to sharp sounds with increased motor activity. This is how the auditory nerve functions as the hearing center forms in the cerebral cortex.
It is very easy to check this. It is enough to turn on the music into the headphones and put them on the pregnant belly. The kid will begin to move more actively or, conversely, change his behavior, becoming quiet. Scientists have found that in a child at a gestational age of 30 weeks, individual areas of the cerebral cortex begin to activate, mainly the temporal and frontal lobes. It is these centers that are responsible for the recognition of spoken language, for logic and thinking, for the ability to learn.
Often mothers ask at what stage of pregnancy they can start reading books to their child and communicate with him. The answer is pretty simple - whatever. But most of all the benefits for the development of the baby will be from the lullabies of the mother and her fairy tales, combined with gentle stroking of the abdomen with a hand after 25-26 weeks of pregnancy. It is at this time that the fetus will begin to analyze the sound, its source. He will have his favorite songs, as well as sounds that he doesn't like.
For example, most pregnant women note that babies after 28 weeks of pregnancy react rather nervously to slamming a door, barking a dog, or ringing a mechanical alarm clock.
The child must be allowed to listen to music. He cannot hear her through headphones if they are on mom's ears. Only a woman perceives music at this moment. The child feels her emotions and nothing more.
If you turn on the music through the speakers, both mother and child will enjoy listening.
Remember that all sounds from the outside for the baby sound a little muffled, because the abdominal wall of the parent and the amniotic fluid in which the child is located interferes. But in general, he is good at capturing what is happening on the other side of the abdomen.
That is why you should not quarrel and shout, swear. It is better to introduce the baby to classical music, a gentle childish lullaby, then he will recognize these melodies after birth. It has been proven that newborns and infants fall asleep much better to the music that they have already known from the time in the womb. After birth, babies will immediately recognize familiar voices - mother's, father's.
Reading and singing to the baby in the womb is also necessary in order to stimulate as early as possible those areas of the brain that will then be responsible for its development, intelligence, learning and speech.
About when the baby in the womb begins to hear, see the next video.
