Unborn babies played music in the womb 'remember the melodies when they are born'
Lullaby: Babies can remember melodies they hear in the womb even after they are born, according to new research
Babies can remember melodies they hear in the womb even after they are born, according to new research.
Scientists played music to infants three weeks before they were born and then tested them one month after birth.
They discovered the babies' heart rates slowed by about 12 beats a minute when the familiar melody was heard. An unfamiliar song had much less of an effect.
The findings add to scientists' understanding of the effects of what sounds get heard in the womb, including how babies learn to perceive speech.
Developmental psychobiologist Carolyn Granier-Deferre, at Paris Descartes University, in France, and her colleagues tested 50 pregnant women.
The team asked them to play a brief recording of a descending piano melody twice daily in the 35th, 36th and 37th weeks after their last menstrual period.
When the women's 50 infants were one month old, both the descending melody and an ascending nine-note piano melody were played to the babies while they slept.
The scientists found that on average, the heart rates of the sleeping babies briefly slowed by about 12 beats a minute with the familiar descending melody.
Their heart rate slowed by only five or six beats with the unfamiliar ascending melody.
Ms Granier-Deferre said: 'The large heart rate deceleration means the one-month-old infants paid more attention to the melody than they did to other melodies, even though they hadn't heard it for six weeks.
'These results suggest newborns pay more attention to what may be their mother's melodic sounds than they will to those of other women.
'They also will pay more attention to other similar sounds, like female voices in general, than they will to even less similar sounds, like male voices.'
Human hearing develops during the last three months of pregnancy. By five weeks before birth, the cochlea - the spiral-shaped part of the inner ear responsible for hearing - is usually mature.
These findings add to evidence suggesting that prenatal hearing can help infants perceive the sounds of speech.
Ms Granier-Deferre added the findings do not mean pregnant women should play music to their developing offspring.
She said: 'When foetuses are old enough to hear fairly well, about four to five weeks before birth, they will be exposed to all the sounds of the maternal environment.
'There is no biological need for more auditory stimulation - more is not always better, especially during development.
'If mothers want to encourage music appreciation in their children, they can begin after the baby is born, when they can see and know what pleases or annoys, which she will never know from the behaviour of her foetus.'
Furthermore, devices that mothers put directly on their skin to play music may be harmful.
She said: 'This kind of stimulation can be harmful to the foetal ear if it is too loud or left on too long or applied too early during the inner ear development.
'Now, if the mother wants to sing to her baby, why not? A mother's singing is a wonderful part of the natural sound environment.'
The scientists detailed their findings in the February 23 online journal, PLoS ONE.
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Hiten A. Raja
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KENYA.
Hiten@HitenRaja.com
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