The baby will recognize your voice at the very first moment after birth, because he hears it for many months of pregnancy. Not only the hearing, but also other senses of the baby are also developed in the womb. Find out how the senses of the fetus develop.
Even 20-30 years ago it was thought thatfetusin mum's womb is completely unaware of what is happening around him - he does not hear, cannot see, and certainly not it feels neither taste nor smell. Meanwhile, research into prenatal life proves otherwise. The new organism, from the early stages ofpregnancy , works intensively on developingsenses , using all the stimuli that reach it.
It is already quite common to know that the fetus hears sounds. How is it with the other senses? When and how do they begin to shape to finally achieve such a perfect effect?
Fetal development: touch
The sense of touch is the first to develop: already in the 8th week after conception, when the nervous system begins to mature better and better. Initially, only the lips are sensitive to touch, then the cheeks and forehead. With the development of the nervous system and the appearance of more and more sensory receptors, more and more parts of the body respond to tactile sensations, and in the 14th week the entire body of the fetus is sensitive except for the back and the top of the head. When the fetus is 19 weeks old, the degree of brain and nerve fiber development enables learning by touch - the fetus begins to recognize its face by touching it with the hands. sensitive receptors. The tendency to explore the world with the mouth will remain for the child for longer: a six-month-old baby, putting unknown objects in his mouth, does not examine - as we might think - their taste, but the shape, size and texture. And this is how he imagines what they look like.
Suction is a great way to get to know objects. There aren't many of them - the little one mainly sucks his own thumb, getting to know its shape and feeling the touch of his skin.
Fetal development: taste and smell
In the 10th week of pregnancy, the fetus's mouth and nostrils begin to form, and 2 weeks later the fetus is able to swallow.
And what does she swallow? Of course, the amniotic fluid. Swallowing fluid is primarily a training for the digestive and excretory systems, but not only. According to the researchers, it is also a child's way of learningtastes and smells, because the amniotic fluid tastes and smells of foods eaten by the mother. Taste buds on the tongue are formed in the 21st week of pregnancy - from then on, the fetus clearly distinguishes between tastes and clearly prefers what is sweet. It has been noticed that when a bitter liquid is introduced into the amniotic fluid, the fetus swallows it much less frequently (and even apparently grimaces!), And when sweet liquid is added, the frequency of swallowing increases - the child drinks more liquid, because sweet tastes better. !
At the same time, when the taste buds are formed, the hitherto fused nostrils open and the olfactory receptors begin to work. So when you eat a highly tasting food, such as garlic, your child experiences its taste and smell in several ways. First, garlic reaches the fetus through your bloodstream - this activates the olfactory receptors in the fetus' nose. Second, the pungent taste and smell goes directly into the amniotic fluid, and the baby gets to know them by inhaling and swallowing the fluid. Finally, when they released it with urination, the amniotic fluid will again have a specific taste and will be swallowed again, "remembering" the baby once more. So it's good to know that the sharp, strong taste and smell of the food accompany you for a few hours at most, and that your child may feel them for up to 24 hours or longer!
But these exercises from smell are not wasted - smell is next to hearing, the most developed sense of a newborn baby: it is mainly the smell that makes him recognize his mother very quickly.
Fetal development: vision
For obvious reasons, eyesight develops at the latest - the stomach is dark, so there are no stimuli that would stimulate the eyes to work harder. But that doesn't mean the fetus can't see anything at all. Until the 27th week of pregnancy, the eyelids of the fetus are fused, but then they open up, the retina matures, and from the 33rd week the pupils narrow and dilate - the baby begins to distinguish changes in light intensity.
Research shows that it reacts to the light of the flashlight directed at its mother's belly. It is assumed that on a very sunny day, when the abdomen is exposed, the baby may perceive a hazy orange glow. It is also possible that in recent weeks he can recognize blurred shapes.
Fetal hearing
This is the sense of the fetus best researched by scientists. Even in the 1980s, pediatric textbooks stated that the fetus and the newborn could not hear. Meanwhile, some researchers believe that the fetus may perceive sound stimuli as early as 16 or even 14 weeks of pregnancy. This is surprising because the hearing aid and the brain's hearing center do not fully develop until the 24th week. ButScientists say that at first, the baby picks up sounds through the skin - the amniotic fluid conducts sound waves that are picked up by specific receptors on the skin.
What the fetus hears? First of all, what's closest - your heartbeat, blood flow in the blood vessels, noises coming from the intestines and stomach. He also hears sounds from outside your body - voices, music, noise - but worse, because the sound waves they produce are reflected or muffled by your skin and clothes (so when playing music to your baby, put headphones directly on your naked stomach).
The baby's favorite sound is your voice, which he hears in two ways - the sound waves from your mouth reach him through the air, and the vibrations that pass through your body as you speak effectively transfer your voice to the baby's ears.
The fetus reacts to sounds with changes in motor activity and heart rate. When he hears loud and violent sounds, the heart rate increases, and when it is mild, it decreases. The researchers conclude that noisy noises cause stress in the fetus and a defensive reaction - an accelerated heartbeat means fear and the desire to run.