When does a baby in the womb begin to hear?

All pregnant women know that they need to talk with the baby in the womb, because this is beneficial for the babies, because they, while in the mother’s stomach, hear a lot. In this article, we will describe how the ear develops in the fetus, when it starts to hear for real and what it is that is listening in the womb.

The process of formation of the hearing organs in a baby is one of the most complex. At 4-5 weeks of gestation (when the mother only begins the delay of menstruation) a germ appears in the embryo, which later becomes the inner ear. At the gestational age of 7-8 weeks, structures of the middle ear begin to form. The outer ear is finally formed in the third trimester, and hardening of the cartilage of the ears occurs shortly before birth.

Until the fifth month of pregnancy, a very important process of laying and forming the structures of the inner ear lasts. The labyrinth finally becomes hard by the 18th week of pregnancy. The auditory ossicles begin to become hard at approximately 3 months pregnant and ends this process closer to childbirth.

The outer ear, even at birth, is imperfect. The auditory meatus remains soft, and its final design is completed only during the first year of the baby’s life.

Since the process of embryogenesis of hearing in a child has not yet been fully studied and is very multi-step, at any of the stages an unforeseen situation may arise which can lead to the birth of a little one with impaired hearing.

The ability to hear the baby in the womb gets the 15 week of pregnancy. It is at this point that the main stages of laying the inner ear are completed and the processes of the middle ear are already underway. At first, the perception of the sounds of a baby is not the same as ours. He hears them, but the cerebral cortex is not yet ripe and is not able to analyze the signals. Fetal hearing at 15-16 weeks of pregnancy is more reminiscent of the auditory perception of the world by reptiles. It picks up only vibration in the inner ear, which is created by sound waves..

The sound of my mother's heart - one vibration, a loud sound from the fall of a heavy object next to my mother or an alarm bell - a completely different vibration.

It’s almost like hearing us, the baby starts only at 26-27 weeks of gestation. This means that at this time the fetus is no longer just hearing, but responding to the sound. He gradually learns not only to hear something, but also to analyze what he heard. Newborn turns the head on 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.

Hear the baby is not all. It would be naive to believe that in his mother's womb he dwells in silence and grace, enjoying the voice of his mother, who reads fairy tales to him. In the womb, according to the level of noise, it is almost like in a small factory, and in it the baby simply cannot physically perceive all sounds from outside. He constantly hears the noise of blood flow in the vessels, the breath of his mother, the motility of her intestines, the sound of her heart.

If mom speaks, he hears her voice well. In the later stages of pregnancy, the fetus already feels the mood of its mother in timbre and strength of her voice. If the future parent screams, the baby begins to worry. The child responds to harsh sounds with increased physical activity. This is how the work of the auditory nerve manifests itself as the center of hearing forms in the cerebral cortex.

Check it out is very easy. It is enough to turn on the music in the headphones and attach them to the belly of a pregnant woman. The baby will begin to move more actively or, on the contrary, change its behavior by silencing it. Scientists have found that in a child at 30 weeks gestation at the same time, separate areas of the cerebral cortex, mainly temporal and frontal lobes, begin to activate. These centers are responsible for the recognition of conversational speech, for logic and thinking, for the ability to learn.

Often, mothers ask at what time of pregnancy you can begin to read books to your child and communicate with him. The answer is quite simple - on any. But most of all the benefits for the development of the baby will be from the lullabies of the mother and her fairy tales in combination with the tender stroking of the abdomen with his 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 musical compositions, as well as sounds that he does not like.

For example, most pregnant women note that babies after the 28th week of pregnancy rather nervously react to the slamming of the door, to the barking of a dog, to the ring of a mechanical alarm clock.

The child must be given to listen to music. He cannot hear her through headphones if they are on his mother's ears. Music at this moment perceives only a woman. The child feels her emotions and nothing more.

Remember that all sounds from the outside for the baby sound a bit muffled, because the abdominal wall of the parent and the amniotic fluid in which the child is located interferes. But in general, he not bad catches what is happening on the other side of the abdomen.

That is why you should not quarrel and scream, swear. It is better to attach the crumbs to classical music, gentle children's lullabies, then he will recognize these melodies after birth. It is proved that newborns and babies fall asleep much better to music that they already know from the time they were in the womb. After birth, babies will immediately recognize familiar voices - Mom and Dad.

It is also necessary to read and sing the crumbs in the womb in order to stimulate as soon as possible those areas of the brain that will then be responsible for its development, intelligence, training and speech.

For information on when the baby in the womb begins to hear, see the next video.