Day 122 - Hear in the Now Frontier

Over the past few weeks, I've been driving K___ to distraction by asking, 'Has the baby got ears yet?'

It's not the fact that I can't remember when it is, it's the fact that I say 'ears' when what I actually mean is 'hearing'. Ear buds were developing about day thirty of the pregnancy. If you look back to the very first entry I made for this Blog, (Day 29 when I wrote that K___ had just tested positive) so the foetus has had ears for a long old time. However, I maintain they're just flaps until the baby can hear, hence 'ears'.

K___ will be pleased that this is now academic since now, in the 18th week of pregnancy, the baby can indeed hear. Tests indicate that babies can hear everything we hear, only 10 dB quieter. Now, I have had some hearing loss as a child, so mine's not particularly acute, but K___ regularly complains if a mouse farts next door. Last night I was twice dispatched to the front door to respond to knocking that I'd completely failed to hear. Possibly because it wasn't anyone knocking at our door... It was the mouse next door farting rhythmically. If the baby can hear what her mother hears except 10 dB quieter, then s/he could almost certainly hear most of what I hear - although admittedly, s/he doesn't sit in front of a computer for hours on end listening to progressive rock...

Doctors are able to use ultrasound to watch foetus' reactions to noise. These typically include eye movements and 'blink-startle' responses. These have been detected from about 16 weeks*. It's well known that sound travels well through water; in fact, sound travels better through water that it does through air. However, anyone who has ever stuck their head underwater and listened will know that sounds tend to be quite muffled. Not to a baby though. The reason that we would hear sounds as muffled is because there is a cushion of air in the auditory canal outside the ear drum. The foetus, of course, exists entirely in fluid, so it's able to hear a good deal, including intonation and pitch. Hearing development won't be complete until about week 24 and sounds will become increasingly clear over the next few weeks, but s/he can already react to noises.

It's now that we can start playing music to the baby. It's known that babies who regularly hear a tune whilst in the womb will react favourably after birth. Indeed, it's very common for babies to hear the Eastenders' theme and relax. I'd like to try and see if we can get the baby to do the same with some really horrific 15 minute cookie-monster vocal'd death metal piece, but I suspect K___ would karate chop my windpipe if I tried it... I think she'd rather it was Rachmaninov for some reason.

K___'s voice will be the clearest sound for the baby, simply because it originates internally, but my voice will also cause a reaction. I've taken to talking to the bump at bed time. This is quite a strange thing to do in many respects, and I have no doubt to an onlooker it would seem barmy, but it feels quite sensible when I'm doing it! It's known that babies can learn stories in the womb - obviously they don't know the words, but they can react to the rhythm and rhyme, so I'll try that. Maybe I can tell a story about a really horrific 15 minute cookie-monster vocal'd death metal piece without actually playing it..?

Let me just go and ask K___ what she thinks...

[time passes]

[the baby hears the deep voice for a bit]

[there is a pause]

[the baby hears a loud sound as though something chopped against flesh]

[the baby hears a rather unsettling gurgle of distress]

[the baby hears a loud thud on the floor. The deep voice has stopped.]

[There is a pause]

[the baby hears Rachmaninov's piano concerto number 2]

* This 16 weeks is another one of those completely bullshit made up dates that no one seems to agree on. Picking random results from the responses to a Google of 'pregnancy +hearing development weeks' gives dates of 15, 17, 15, 16, 18, 18, 17 and 15 weeks. Pretty varied, huh?