Babies Listen and Remember in the Womb

A new study shows unborn babies remember music they heard while in the womb. Scientists at a university in Paris played piano music for unborn babies twice a day for three weeks late in pregnancy. One month after their birth, they played the same music while monitoring the babies’ heart rates. At the same time they had a control group of babies who hadn’t participated. The infants who heard the music in the womb had twice the reaction to hearing it again as a one-month-old infant compared with the control group. The scientists said the results also suggest newborns are attentive to their mother’s voice because they’ve already become familiar with it in the womb. This works with dads too. A parent’s relationship begins with the child earlier than many thought.