Tips for Parents!

Prenatal Education:
Teach your baby while your baby is still in the womb?!  Is it possible?

     Prenatal education is the external stimulations and learning experienced by a fetus during the prenatal period.  Since a fetus’ sensory abilities, especially the sense of hearing, have been formed and maturely developed in the final period before childbirth the fetus is able to detect external information and stimulation to a certain extent.  According to previous research, a fetus in his or her mother’s body is likely to hear 30% of the human conversation surrounding his or her mother, which includes the voices of his or her mother and other people.  Of course, the fetus is not able to understand the meaning of those conversations, but he or she can sense and learn the tone and pitch of the conversations.  Let’s take Cantonese for an example, it is likely that a fetus is able to learn the tone pattern used in conversations.  It is interesting to note that since a fetus frequently hears his or her mother’s conversations, he or she may become familiar with his or her mother’s voice.   

      Does a fetus still remember what he or she has heard when he or she was still in his or her mother’s body after childbirth?  Past research points out that a fetus will be particularly sensitive towards his or her mothers’ voice and the language used by people surrounding him or her, which means that he or she still remembers the learning experience before birth.  Therefore, one’s language acquisition has actually started before one’s birth.

      Prenatal education is possible at least in the area of language acquisition.  Even though a fetus may not be able to absorb large amount of language information, early experiences can be beneficial to his or her early stage of language acquisition and can help increase his or her interest towards language.  Similarly, it is possible for a baby to have a particular response and interest towards a specific kind of music that he or she has heard when he or she was in the mother’s womb before birth.

      However, don’t forget it is only around the 35th week of pregnancy that the auditory system is mature and sensitive enough to detect external stimuli.  Therefore prenatal education may not be effective if it is carried out too early.

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