Pregnancy is a stage that mothers live as one of the beautiful ones of motherhood. Little by little we feel how our baby is growing and we are also witnessing the way in which they respond to stimuli , sometimes even much earlier than we expect. It is easy to see that our babies are tremendously receptive and that from the womb they begin to learn things , so we can take advantage of this process, which takes place naturally, to connect even more with them.
Physiologically, children’s brains are incredibly elastic due to the number of assemblages that are being built day after day. This process and the interaction they have with the outside world makes the baby begin to learn even before birth, mainly through their senses and emotions.
Learn to swallow
Around the 16th week of pregnancy, the taste buds are already working perfectly, at which point the baby also begins to drink some amniotic fluid. This has been shown to help your digestive system mature as your body begins a filtering process.
Pees
Just as the baby drinks liquid, it eliminates it . This recycling process of the amniotic fluid occurs about every three hours and the baby controls the volume by compensating the speed of production (urinating) with the speed of elimination (swallowing it). In the final stretch of pregnancy, practically 90% of the amniotic fluid is urine , a characteristic that indicates that the baby’s kidneys are working perfectly.
Learn to identify the flavors
This swallowing process “trains” the brain, in such a way that it can already identify the salty taste and the variations that take place depending on what the mother eats. That is why it is vital that during pregnancy, we have a balanced and varied diet , since in a certain way we can influence our children’s preference for certain foods or the predisposition to try new flavors.
Can hear sounds
An investigation carried out by the University of Helsinki, found a high correlation between the neural response of babies to sounds heard before and after birth . When hearing sounds and words that were repeated constantly during pregnancy, the babies showed higher brain activity than those who did not receive prior stimulation. That is why it is claimed that even activities such as listening to music are very beneficial for your cognitive development, as it is a very good way to stimulate the electrical impulses that make up your brain.
You can identify your mother’s voice
Mothers have an advantage when carrying the baby, since they listen to us from within and it is the first voice they recognize. The same study I cited earlier also revealed that listening to our voices frequently can lay a better foundation for speech perception and understanding , giving us very strong evidence that talking to the baby during pregnancy is good.
Can identify different languages
A study carried out at the University of British Columbia in Canada showed that babies exposed to two different languages during the gestation period are able to recognize them at birth, so it is possible that stimuli such as watching television or having conversations in another language , can have a very positive impact on the cognitive development of the baby and increase their receptivity for understanding a language other than their mother tongue.
Can make gestures
From time to time ultrasounds come to light in which we see babies making different types of gestures (the baby that showed an “ok” signal on his ultrasound stuck to my mind), such as articulating, removing tongue, yawn, suck, blink, frown, and smile . Research shows that they begin to do them from the fourth month of pregnancy, but that their evolution is quite fast, so the frequency of these gestures of the fetus is an indicator of its correct neurological development.
Can see the light
In all the studies that have been carried out on the visual capacity that babies have when they are in the womb, it has been proven that they react immediately when stimulated with light, turning their heads to see them better and that in fact during the last weeks they can identify shapes, and very especially human faces.
Play
The speed at which babies evolve inside the womb is incredible, because sometimes we don’t even imagine the things they do inside. In fact, one of the most incredible is that they learn to play, because it is a way for them to identify their own body and to interact with the comfortable place that houses them . That is why it is not surprising that we find ultrasounds in which the baby slides or plays with his umbilical cord.
It sounds
It is known that from the seventh month of gestation the baby already experiences the REM phase of sleep (rapid eye movement), at which time brain activity generates dreams. Although life experiences in the womb are obviously very limited, at the end of pregnancy they may be able to dream of sounds or lights , since the brain works practically the same as that of a newborn.
Is able to feel a massage
The sense of touch is the first that babies develop . From approximately seven weeks of pregnancy they are able to have sensations on their face, by week eleven their hands can do it and at the end of pregnancy, their body will have fully developed skin receptors. Despite being still inside his mother, the baby will already be able to feel when someone touches him (in fact they like it), when his mother is moving and even when he is being massaged. Yes, receiving massages is very pleasant, but when we are pregnant it is also necessary!
Perceive the mother’s state of mind
Undoubtedly one of the most amazing things that the baby learns while in the womb of his mother, is to recognize his state of mind . In fact, there are studies that show that a pregnancy lived in the middle of a stressful situation can be reflected in the behavior of the newborn baby, in the difficulty to calm down and sleep … and even in attention problems or hyperactivity in older children.
The process, although complex, takes place from the series of chemical reactions that occur in the body when we are stressed . If this happens in a specific way, the placenta acts as a filter so that the cortisol that we generate does not reach the fetus, but if on the contrary it is our constant state, that level of protection decreases and directly affects the baby.
The development of babies in the womb is such an incredible process that it will never cease to amaze us and as you can see, it is important to bear in mind that just as we feel our babies when they are in our womb, they feel us , and that Everything we do, eat and even how we feel will be reflected in them practically throughout their lives.
In Babies and More | Stimulation of the baby begins in the womb
Image | Freepik
