I am 27 weeks pregnant. As a musician, I am fascinated by what my baby can already hear from inside my womb. About now, scientists believe that his* brain and hearing is sufficiently developed to process a range of different sounds, including my voice, environmental sounds, and even melodies. We might think that babies can just hear muffled noise whilst in the womb, but apparently amniotic fluid is a pretty good conductor of sound.
A recent study by the University of Helsinki, found that “newborns seem to react to sounds during the fetal period…and respond distinctly to them after birth.” These sounds include specific melodies. Mothers taking part in the study were asked to play a recording of “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” to their bumps five times a week. Researchers measured the responses the babies’ brains had to the familiar melody, and to melodies where some of the notes had been slightly changed. They did this shortly after birth and again at 4 months. They found that prenatal exposure to music had long term effects on brain development, and that the babies who had been played the melody regularly in utero remembered it up to 4 months later, and had increased brain activity in response to it compared with babies that had not been played the tune.
I love the NHS response to this study; whilst they acknowledge that it has scientific merit, they criticise the Mail Online and the Telegraph for over-egging the findings by claiming that playing music to babies in the womb improves their hearing and musical learning. There still isn’t any evidence for this yet (see my previous blog post on the so-called “Mozart effect”). A quick search on iTunes for “baby music” uncovers a whole array of albums marketed at mums, with doubtful claims to turn their babies into the next Einstein. Listening to sample tracks reveals that often they are not a particularly satisfying musical experience either. But the final sentence of the NHS article is my favourite:
Perhaps the most important thing to consider if you are pregnant is your own wellbeing. Playing music that you enjoy and that relaxes you may be a better option than listening to a lullaby on a loop.
Definitely. Personally, I can’t think of anything worse, when there is so much beautiful music out there. Which is why I am turning my attention to what piano repertoire I can play to my baby (while I still have two free hands to practice and am not totally sleep-deprived). I am tempted by Chopin’s Berceuse (French for “lullaby”) after a conversation last night with my childhood piano teacher, although the filigree passages in the right hand are anything but relaxing for the pianist!
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=v1CXY5NHvms
I also love Rachmaninoff’s Prelude Op. 23 No. 4 in D:
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ATWU85fxD2k
So, why am I bothering if all this isn’t necessarily going to turn my baby into a little Mozart? Although there is no evidence that it will improve my child’s musical learning, my mother’s instinct tells me that it could well be reassuring for him to hear familiar melodies when he is born. Ilari and Polka from the University of Toronto quote two studies which show that babies find piano music more relaxing than other types of music, and they also claim that babies seem to like Ravel! (Sonatine was another piece on my list). Another study shows that exposure to lullabies can reduce the stay of premature infants in neonatal units – this is certainly interesting from a music therapy point of view.
Time will tell, especially when I return to teaching later in the year; will the familiar sound of my students and I practising and working on our pieces lull my baby to sleep? Or will he scream anyway?
Links to the studies:
http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0078946
http://www.nhs.uk/news/2013/10October/Pages/Babies-may-remember-music-heard-in-the-womb.aspx
*I am using “he” for now as it saves me wading through the whole he/she/it conundrum.
