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Fetuses Have Memory, Study Shows
Filed under: In The News, Research Reveals: Babies, Pregnancy Health
Are you listening in there? Photo: sxc.hu
In a study of 100 pregnant women, researchers used ultrasound to watch fetal movements while "vibroacoustic" sounds were played. ("Vibroacoustics" is the process of hearing sound vibrations through the body.) Like the car horn experiment, they discovered that when the sound was repeated, the fetus eventually stopped responding to it. But by waiting longer intervals between sounds, they found that fetuses as young as 30 weeks could remember the sound for 10 minutes. At 34 weeks, a fetus may remember the sound for as long as 4 weeks.
"What is critically important to recognize, however, is that these memories are not conscious or introspective voluntary memories they way an older child or adult thinks about past experiences," says Mark Strauss, autism researcher and associate professor at the University of Pittsburgh. "They are very different and, indeed, involve lower areas of the brain that are very different from high-level brain area."Despite the differences, the research has the potential to change the way we think about the impact of stimulus on very young children, including those still in the womb.
"It's interesting to say that babies have some memory, some intake of things, even if they're born premature. There's a lot of movement towards making intensive care units friendlier, controlling noise for example, for premature babies," said Dr. Paul Graham Fisher, a professor of neurology at Stanford University.
For parents-to-be, this research also suggests that laying a speaker on your belly and playing Mozart for your unborn child isn't as silly as they may have believed. In addition to soothing both the mom and the baby with classical music, they might also be making beautiful memories.
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ReaderComments (Page 1 of 1)
7-16-2009 @ 6:43PM
Heather said...I think they have even longer long term memory. How else would they remember our voices after they were born, or the sounds of the womb.
My parents said when my mom was pregnant my dad played a lot of Scottish music, bagpipes and all. After my sister and I were born we would not sleep to the childrens recordings but put on the bagpipes and we were asleep in 5 min.
I think they remember a lot.
Reply
7-17-2009 @ 7:19PM
maritza said...aaww dat is nice!
my boyfriend told me that he loves to drink this certain type of soda and that his mom would crave dat soda when she was pregnant with him.
7-20-2009 @ 2:56AM
nancyliuxiaomei said...I do believe they can have the memory.There is one story said that once upon a time,a mom was going to give a birth to her second baby,so she requested her first son to sing a song for the coming sister.And the boy did.
The next month the mon was sending to the hopital to produce the baby.However,the baby was born to be very weak,even the doctor said maybe the baby would die soon.
But the mon did not want to gave up,so one day,she asked her son to sing the same song he sang to her sister when she was in the mon's womb .And the girl was calm down and getting better.What a mircle ,isn't it ?
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