Babies in the Womb can Identify Mother's Voice: Study

Babies while still in the womb can recognize their mother's voice, according to a study.

A past research suggests parents should start reading out stories to their infants to strengthen family bonding and develop their speaking and language learning skills by exposing them to words and sentences from an early age. Experts from the University of Florida's College of Nursing discovered that learning begins much earlier than birth in children. They say that at 34 weeks of pregnancy, a fetus can learn to identify itsr mother's voice, reports the Health Day News.

The trial observed 32 mums-to-be who recited aloud nursery rhymes for six weeks during 28 to 34 weeks of pregnancy. The researchers recorded the mothers' voices reciting the rhymes and played it to test heart rate of fetuses. When the heart rates slowed down it indicated the fetus's familiarity with mother's voice and this trait developed within 34 weeks of pregnancy. The experimenters again played audio recordings of strangers' voices and noticed the fetal heart increased when they were exposed to a new set of words read out by a new voice.

"The mother's voice is the predominant source of sensory stimulation in the developing fetus," said Charlene Krueger, study author and associate professor in the University of Florida's College of Nursing, reports the Health Day News.

"This research highlights just how sophisticated the third trimester fetus really is and suggests that a mother's voice is involved in the development of early learning and memory capabilities. This could potentially affect how we approach the care and stimulation of the preterm infant," she adds.

These findings highlight innate form of interaction between mother and fetuses.  The authors are planning to examine the impact of playing mother's voice clippings to newborns, report the Reuters.

More information is available online in the Journal Infant Behavior and Development.