Author: Lisa Jarrett

Pregnancy and childbirth are life-changing experiences that require proper attention and care from both expectant mother and father. The roughly 40-week journey can prove physically and emotionally taxing for both parents-to-be. Before such changes cause more harm than good to the baby, proper prenatal education is needed.

In an article about prenatal care written for FitPregnancy.com, contributor Jeanne Faulkner, R.N. provides simple yet crucial tips on how to surmount challenges related to childbirth. The article focuses on natural birth, which according to Faulkner, offers more benefits, particularly by eliminating the potential negative effects of pain management on babies. Here’s an excerpt advising expectant mothers to get properly educated about their pregnancy.

“GET A SOLID PRENATAL EDUCATION
SEEK OUT CLASSES THAT INCLUDE HOW LABOR AND BIRTH WORK AND NATURAL LABOR PAIN MANAGEMENT TECHNIQUES, SUCH AS BREATHING, SELF-HYPNOSIS, RELAXATION AND OTHER COPING MECHANISMS. YOUR HOSPITAL PROBABLY OFFERS AN EVENING OR WEEKEND COURSE, BUT THAT MIGHT NOT BE ENOUGH INFORMATION, ESPECIALLY IF THEY HAVE A HIGH EPIDURAL OR C-SECTION RATE. INSTEAD, RESEARCH INDEPENDENT EDUCATORS. TRY A FEW DIFFERENT CLASSES OR STYLES UNTIL YOU FIND ONE THAT FEELS LIKE A GOOD FIT.”

In addition to having a safe and healthy natural childbirth, the goal of proper prenatal care is to ensure that the baby will have mental, emotional, and physical wellness throughout his life. During the prenatal period, the baby’s development and future are being shaped. The most effective prenatal care systems include well-defined auditory exercises, which involve letting the child listen to a series of music for baby in the womb. As is widely known, the right kind of music can help soothe and relax not just the unborn baby but the mother as well.

The relationship between music and the speaking voice is a very close one. Both share many of the same elements, such as rhythm, pitch, and timbre. Music can then be a pre-cursor to language training. However, the mentioned elements of language are best captured in a series of tones that have been especially created to conform to the prenatal baby’s developing auditory skills.

In addition to soothing womb music, mothers can also expose their babies to a series of tones developed to help along a baby’s cognitive development. A prenatal education system, like that formulated by BabyPlus.com, has been found in various research to effectively teach the baby to distinguish among various tones, as his abilities progress in the womb. A program such as this ensures that the sounds the baby hears have been carefully arranged into a curriculum that provides optimum cognitive learning effects.

(Source: 7 Tips for Having A Natural Childbirth, FitPregnancy.com)

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The post Language and Music for Baby in the Womb as Part of Pregnancy Care appeared first on blog.babyplus.com.

The prenatal period is among the most important stages in the human lifecycle. This is where a person’s behavior, physical characteristics, and health conditions are profoundly defined. Expectant mothers are advised to get prenatal education to be able to meet the ideal requirement for having a mentally, emotionally, and physically healthy baby. One popular notion is using music for baby in the womb.

Many experts believe that music can effectively stimulate the baby’s brain and emotions. In the excerpt below from an article for LiveStrong.com, writer Bridget Coila explores findings from various studies to discuss the link between music and a baby’s development.

“MUSIC AND DEVELOPMENT
ACCORDING TO BABY CENTER, THE TRUE EFFECT OF MUSIC ON PRENATAL DEVELOPMENT REMAINS UNKNOWN. A LOOSELY-CONTROLLED PRELIMINARY STUDY IN THE “MUSIC EDUCATORS JOURNAL” IN 1985 FOUND THAT BABIES EXPOSED TO MUSIC BEFORE BIRTH HAD LONGER ATTENTION SPANS THAN EXPECTED FOR THEIR AGE AND IMITATED ADULT SOUNDS BETTER. ANOTHER SMALL STUDY IN 1997 IN “PRE- & PERI-NATAL PSYCHOLOGY JOURNAL” LOOKED AT BABIES ENROLLED IN A PROGRAM CALLED FIRSTSTART, WHICH EXPOSED UNBORN BABIES TO MUSICAL STIMULATION. THESE BABIES SHOWED BETTER MOTOR SKILLS, LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT AND COGNITIVE SKILLS FROM BIRTH TO SIX MONTHS THAN THE CONTROL GROUP OF BABIES. HOWEVER, BECAUSE THESE STUDIES WERE SMALL AND HAVE NOT BEEN REPEATED, THE QUESTION OF WHETHER AND HOW MUCH MUSIC AFFECTS UNBORN BABIES REMAINS UNDER INVESTIGATION.”

While the idea that music is good for babies in their prenatal stage is supported by many testimonies, this isn’t something that expectant parents must apply without care. In fact, they should not try it without recommendations from health practitioners who have experience and training in providing auditory exercises for fetuses.

What is well known, however, is that soft music produces “white noise”, which, along with everyday sounds surrounding the mother, can help soothe and relax the baby. How much the right music for babies in the womb can stimulate cognitive learning, if at all, is still subject for debate.

Meantime, various research studies have shown that a specially developed curriculum of tones for pre-natal babies, such as that provided by BabyPlus.com, are most effective in teaching the baby pattern recognition. The incremental speed and complexity of the tones in the Baby Plus Prenatal Education System “teaches” prenatal babies to recognize and distinguish sounds, which is the most basic step in cognitive and critical learning.

(Source: The Effects of Music on Prenatal Babies, LiveStrong.com)

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The post Correct Prenatal Care: Does Music for Baby in the Womb Make Sense? appeared first on blog.babyplus.com.

In August 2013, researchers at the University of Helsinki, Finland released the results of a study, reinforcing the belief that babies can hear while in their mothers’ womb. NBC News correspondent Meghan Holohan writes about the research conducted on 33 expecting mothers, half of whom listened to a recording of made up words, while the other half did not.

“THE MOMS AND BABIES HEARD THE NONSENSE WORDS ABOUT 50 TO 71 TIMES. FOLLOWING BIRTH, THE RESEARCHERS TESTED THE ALL 33 BABIES FOR NORMAL HEARING AND THEN PERFORMED AN EEG (ELECTROENCEPHALOGRAPH) BRAIN SCAN TO SEE IF THE NEWBORNS RESPONDED DIFFERENTLY TO THE MADE-UP WORDS AND DIFFERENT PITCHES.

BABIES WHO LISTENED TO THE CD IN UTERO RECOGNIZED THE MADE-UP WORDS AND NOTICED THE PITCH CHANGES, WHICH THE INFANTS WHO DID NOT HEAR THE CD DID NOT, THE RESEARCHERS FOUND. THEY COULD TELL BECAUSE THEIR BRAIN ACTIVITY PICKED UP WHEN THOSE WORDS WERE PLAYED, WHILE BABIES WHO DIDN’T HEAR THE CD IN THE WOMB DID NOT REACT AS MUCH.”

The findings suggest that babies who are exposed to consistent prenatal music while in the womb stand a better chance of developing their language skills as they develop. Other studies have also identified the kind of music that works best both for adults and babies, including pre-natal ones. After all, music can affect the human mind in a variety of ways, sometimes defying logic.

Kathy Henderson, author of Hush, Baby, Hush, a children’s book on lullabies, says lullabies also have a calming effect on adults. The brain favors soft, harmonious music, especially one that starts slowly, rises in tempo at the middle, and finishes softly or slowly again. This type of harmony induces the feeling of comfort and compassion that the baby experiences from the mother’s womb.

Additionally, a study by Kawakami et al. (2013) revealed that listening to sad, somber music can actually be used to improve mood, mainly because this type of music induces a mix of positive and negative emotions for cathartic effect. That said, music’s effects on pre-natal babies could be varied as well, highlighting the need to identify and choose the right kind of music to expose these babies to.

Pre-natal babies’ abilities to recognize, discriminate, and recall various sounds, however, can go beyond their early exposure to music. A full audio-learning program for pre-natal infants, like that designed by BabyPlus, offer their own enriching benefits. An effective prenatal sound system can provide good foundation for a baby’s future cognitive skills and behavior. As the baby learns to distinguish a variety of sounds while in the womb, it also starts to learn the basics of communication and language.

(Source: Unborn babies are hearing you, loud and clear, Today, August 26, 2013)

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The post Choose Prenatal Music Wisely: Babies Recognize Them from the Womb appeared first on blog.babyplus.com.