Cocoon Dreaming: The Secret Lives of Unborn Children

By Sarah-Marie Hoduski

Dreaming, laughing, listening to soap opera theme music, an interest in Swedish vs. American vowel sounds, and developing a palette for curry and cookies: our lives in the womb are busy.

Once thought to merely be a clump of tissue, science has taken amazing strides in showing us how complex and amazing the lives of the unborn are.

Babies in the womb go through REM cycle dreaming; however, when they are awake their lives are full and they are learning at top speed. They even enjoy music: new evidence shows that, “newborns recognize the theme song from their mother’s favorite soap opera.”

Developed sense of humor? Babies have been shown to laugh in the womb: they actually bounce up and down with pleasure in response to their mother and father’s laughter. In fact, “by six months, your embryo is affected by your emotions, according to research from the Association for Psychological Science. The effects are so powerful that your emotional health can start to form your baby’s attitudes about life.”

So, your child’s personality is already being influenced by yours: children that experience a mother that is depressed during pregnancy are more likely to grow up depressed, but “Research shows that your baby’s heart rate slows when you speak. Your voice, your laughter, your singing and your crying are familiar to your baby. He or she recognizes it, and it’s calming.”

It may be possible to begin teaching our unborn baby. ScienceMag says, “more recent studies have expanded on the idea of fetal learning, indicating that newborns already familiarized themselves with sounds of their parent’s native language. One showed that American newborns seem to perceive Swedish vowel sounds as unfamiliar, sucking on a high-tech pacifier to hear more of the new sounds. Swedish infants showed the same response to English vowels.”

That sweet tooth you can’t seem to kick? Your baby feels the same way. Sweetened amniotic fluid is more readily consumed than other fluid. Similarly, will your daughter grow up loving Indian food and strawberry custard or your son grow up hating mayonnaise? A mother can give her baby a sophisticated palette through what she eats during pregnancy.

Life in the womb is stilly quite a mystery. However, in the meantime, we know our unborn children are enjoying the theme Days of Our Lives.

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2013/08/babies-learn-recognize-words-womb
https://familyshare.com/26709/this-is-what-your-baby-feels-when-you-laugh-during-pregnancy
https://familyshare.com/26709/this-is-what-your-baby-feels-when-you-laugh-during-pregnancy