You might think that you have to wait until your baby is born to start learning about their abilities. But guess what? You can start exploring your little one’s memory even before they make their debut into the world!
This experiment offers an early glimpse into how your unborn baby’s memory works. Plus, it’s a great way to start bonding with your child before they’re even born.
Because why wait until your baby is officially here to start building that special connection?
| Age: 3rd Trimester – 1 Month | Ability Tested: Memory |
| What You Need: 1. Your growing “baby bump” 2. A favorite song or children’s book 3. A good sense of humor for when people give you funny looks! |
| How It Works: 1. During your last trimester, read your favorite children’s book out loud or sing a beloved song to your baby bump. 2. Repeat this as often as you’d like until your baby is born. 3. After your baby arrives, lay them down on a flat surface and read the book or sing the song again. 4. Observe your baby’s reactions! |
Why it works
Congratulations on getting ready to welcome your baby! While they may not listen to you much when they’re a teenager, right now, you have a captive audience. Your unborn baby is listening to you, even if you’re off-key or reading a story aloud to what seems like no one. And believe it or not, your baby is already learning and remembering.
By the third trimester, your baby’s ears and other sensory organs have developed enough to hear sounds from outside the womb. But more than just hearing, research has shown that babies can remember these sounds after they are born. In studies, pregnant women who read the same story to their babies daily during the last six weeks of pregnancy had babies who reacted differently to that familiar story compared to a new one after birth.
Original Research
“Research studies over the past 40 years have established that the maternal voice is a prominent feature of the prenatal environment, that the fetus responds to it, and that prenatal learning carries over into early postnatal life. The primary aim of the chapter is to describe what is known through research about prenatal exposure to the mother’s voice, especially through audition. A second aim is to present a consideration of nonauditory experience such as the vestibular and, possibly, cutaneous sensations that are uniquely linked to auditory stimulation by the maternal voice. A third aim is to raise a question about the necessity of prenatal experience with the acoustic aspects of the maternal voice, given emerging data from deaf infants who receive cochlear implants many months after birth. The chapter concludes by considering implications for the care of hospitalized preterm infants who experience atypical experience with the mother’s voice and other sounds. Chapter conclusions are (1) fetal auditory experience with the mother’s voice begins around 24 weeks after conception, (2) the maternal voice is potentially a rich source of multimodal stimulation and information, and (3) for favorable postnatal development, the role that is played by very early exposure to the maternal voice is not yet understood.”
Reference:
Moon, C. (2017). Prenatal experience with the maternal voice. Early vocal contact and preterm infant brain development: Bridging the gaps between research and practice, 25-37.
So, if you have a special song or story you’d like to share with your baby, start now! Choose quiet moments, use a clear and loud voice, and repeat the process regularly. It might feel strange to sing or read to an unborn baby—especially if you’re in public—but your baby is listening and will remember these sounds. It’s incredible to think that simply talking or singing to your baby can create a shared experience that fosters bonding even before you meet face-to-face.
You may feel your baby reacting to your chosen song or story while you’re still pregnant, becoming more active and kicking or rolling around in the womb. Later, after your baby is born, you will be able to see her reaction when you sing the song again. Does she get extra active and kick around as you sing? When you start reading your story, does she suck faster on her pacifier or stop fussing to listen?
Tips to Help Your Child
If you’re passionate about music, you might already have plans to introduce your baby to some classics like Mozart, The Beatles, or other favorites. However, when it comes to fostering your child’s development, the type of music isn’t as crucial as how you engage with it.
You can expose your baby to music passively (by playing songs in the background while you go about your day) or actively (by singing, dancing, or playing instruments together). Babies benefit more from active engagement with music. Research has shown that babies between two to six months old who participate in regular, structured music sessions or similar activities at home can better distinguish musical tones and often use more gestures earlier, an important preverbal communication method. Plus, active musical interaction enhances the parent-child relationship. After all, there’s nothing like bonding over some fun music, dancing, and play!
Tips to Help Yourself
Worried that your child might be a picky eater? You might be able to influence their taste preferences before they’re even born. Babies in the womb use more than just their hearing; they also have a sense of taste. The flavors of the foods a mother eats during pregnancy season her amniotic fluid, which the baby swallows regularly. This allows them to sample the foods their mother eats.
Researchers discovered this by having one group of pregnant women drink carrot juice daily during their last trimester, while another group drank only water. The babies of the carrot-juice-drinking mothers showed a preference for carrots when they were introduced to them later as baby food.
Original Research
Newborns can recognize songs, stories, words and smells that they were exposed to 6 weeks before they were born.
Although no one remembers their experience in the womb, the fetus can form memories that last for weeks. For example, newborns remember sounds and tastes that they experienced in the womb. Two and three-day-old infants preferred hearing a story that their mother had read out loud twice a day during the last 6 weeks before birth. Newborns this age also prefer a familiar lullaby that their mothers sung while they were pregnant compared to a new lullaby. Newborns also showed a preference for classical or jazz music when their mother had listened to one of these selections of music twice a day during the last 6 weeks before birth. Interestingly, this preference can be observed when the music was played at 36 weeks gestation, but not at 30 weeks, suggesting that learning familiar sounds occurs after 30 weeks.
Read more at: Charlotte Lozier Institute
This shows how the foods you eat while pregnant can shape your child’s future food preferences. The same applies during breastfeeding, as breast milk also carries the flavors of what the mother consumes. If you want your child to eat more vegetables later in life, start eating them yourself now! Also, consider breastfeeding, as breastfed babies tend to accept new foods more readily than their formula-fed peers, who are exposed to a more limited range of flavors.
Because what you eat during pregnancy and breastfeeding influences your baby, it’s extra important to eat healthy foods. Not only is this good for you and your baby, but it might also help your baby develop a liking for those healthy foods later on. It’s never too early to start fostering healthy habits!
Reference
Ankowski, A., & Ankowski, A. (2015). Think Like a Baby: 33 Simple Research Experiments You Can Do at Home to Better Understand Your Child’s Developing Mind. Chicago Review Press.
Moon, C. (2017). Prenatal experience with the maternal voice. Early vocal contact and preterm infant brain development: Bridging the gaps between research and practice, 25-37.
