Why It Is Important To Talk To Your Baby When Pregnant

By Dorinne Davis – Audiologist

Parents can often read and react to their child’s emotional states. Parents often understand a baby’s cry or laugh as illness, fear, hunger, or more. A study reported on ABC news in 2005[1], shared that Allan Schore, a leading neuroscientist at the University of California, Los Angeles’ Center for Culture, Brain, and Development pointed out that the connection between parent and child during the first year of life affects a child’s psychological state and plays a role in physically shaping the brain. His own research concluded that the parent-child interaction plays a key role in baby brain development on the right side.

The right side of the brain is stimulated when interacting with others, especially care-givers. When a care-giver interacts with an infant, the child’s brain and prenatal health is being affected, shaping emotional responses. This interaction appears to help the child’s ability to handle stress and feel emotionally secure.

 

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Shore also shares that the child’s brain is not only shaped by ‘genetics but also the experience of the last trimester of pregnancy through the child’s first year and a half of life’. At 7 months in utero, the ear’s neurological system is developed, supporting the stimulation both to the left hemisphere of the brain, important for speech and language development, and the right hemisphere of the brain, important for this emotional connection. The child’s brain will be shaped by prenatal brain stimulation and personal attachments.

As the parent, you do not need to wait until your child is born to talk, sing or interact with them. Start interacting while you are pregnant with prenatal sound. Singing lays the underlying tonal and rhythm patterns of the world, but talking provides the smaller, subtler sound changes that can also support your child’s emotional well-being. Prenatal sound systems like BabyPlus can also provide Have fun with your baby. Chat, talk, sing and interact with them. Enjoy the experience!

©Davis 2014

A prenatal sound system like BabyPlus can also provide desirable prenatal cognitive development. If you want to be kept in the know on BabyPlus developments, let us know!

[1] https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/print?id=1362076