March 3, 3017.

Research is focused on this long period of nine months between conception and the birth of a child. What happens in the mother’s womb is still very mysterious, but we can already say that the fetus is not passive. This gestation period is crucial for the development of the child. Here are the 5 most important things a baby learns in his mother’s womb.

1. The fetus discovers the noise

Among the many things that a fetus discovers in the very early stages of its existence, are the sounds of its mother: the beating of her heart, her breathing, her voice or even her digestion. Then he will be attentive to what is happening outside his mother’s womb. Baby begins to respond to sounds from week 16 of pregnancy, but hearing improves by week 30. He will appreciate certain songs and will be disturbed by too loud noises. He will like to hear his mother sing or speak softly to him.

« In order for a Gypsy child to become a musician, it was decided that during the last six weeks before his birth and the first six weeks of that child’s life, every day, the best musician of an instrument would go and play for him with the pregnant mother, then given birth and breastfeeding », Said Françoise Dolto, in 1985.« And, it seems, the child later wanted to play this instrument and excelled at it. »

2. The fetus learns to recognize words

According to a study published in 2013 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, fetuses would also be able to remember words. To reach this conclusion, researchers at the University of Helsinki, Finland, made fetuses hear the same simple word many times during pregnancy. When the babies were born, the researchers repeated this word and found that when they heard it the newborns showed a neural recognition signal.

Another US-Swedish study, dated 2013, found that babies learn their mother tongue as early as week 30 of pregnancy, when the hearing system kicks in. Once born, babies do not react in the same way when they hear a song in their mother tongue or a song in a foreign language.

3. The fetus learns emotions

The fetus also learns emotionally in its mother’s womb. His emotions are modeled on those of his mother. If she laughs he will be happy, if she cries he will feel her distress. We must not forget that a fetus is much more sensitive than it seems. We believe him in his bubble but he can suffer from the stress of his mother for example. Psychologists have, on numerous occasions, observed that certain traumas in adults date back to this period of in utero life.

According to Professor Charles Cohen-Salmon, researcher at Inserm, “ the stressful regimes to which their mothers have been subjected can produce behavioral disorders in the offspring – especially males – that appear late », He explains in La Croix.

4. The fetus discovers the taste

Many studies have shown that babies do not react the same way depending on what foods their mothers eat. If the mother tastes a sweet food, for example, the fetus will swallow more her amniotic fluid only if she had eaten a salty product. A study carried out by a team of researchers from Queen’s University Belfast, in Northern Ireland, also revealed that the learning of taste in fetuses was done from the 5th^e month of pregnancy. It is therefore important to diversify your diet when you are pregnant so that the baby’s taste buds develop properly.

5. The fetus learns to sleep and dream

You might think that sleep cannot be learned and that a fetus spends its time sleeping, but all pregnant women know that their babies go through awakening phases and that they even do their sport several times in the morning. daytime. The rest of the time, he sleeps. Researchers have even managed to determine that the fetus is able to have dreams from the 32nd week. Fetuses have been caught smiling while they sleep, isn’t that proof they’re dreaming?

Read all our factsheets on: Pregnancy from A to Z

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