Music for Pregnant Women

Music for pregnant women

The development of a child must begin during pregnancy, and as numerous studies confirm, music can help with this. After all, the baby begins to hear and distinguish sounds already at 6 months. There is also an opinion that if you let your baby listen to music from this period, he may develop musical talent. Music can also influence your emotional state. One of the experiments can be cited as an example. A pregnant woman listened to the music of the French composer Claude Debussy while resting. And strangely enough, after the birth of a child, it was possible to calm him down with the compositions that the mother listened to during pregnancy.

Since ancient times, people have practiced “music therapy.” In Ancient China, they believed that life begins from the moment of conception, so education and development should begin as early as possible. And in Japan, pregnant women were moved to special communities located among beautiful nature, where the unborn child, together with the mother, began to be taught aesthetics and musical art.

However, scientists have their own explanation for this influence of music. During intrauterine development, the fetus has atrophied neurons, which, if active, can affect the level of intellectual development. That is why the educational process must begin in the prenatal period of the baby’s life.

In 1982, doctors determined that the fetus hears all sounds that are a consequence of vital processes in the female body (heartbeat, work of the digestive tract), as well as sound signals coming from the outside. However, passing through all the obstacles, the sound reaches the small ear 30% quieter, and high frequencies are lost. This, for example, can be compared to loud music that is played by neighbors, but the sound that reaches us is already muffled. But the child’s ability to react to all this was proven with the help of an electroencephalogram and an electrocardiogram, which recorded an increase in the functioning of the heart and brain or, conversely, a slowdown, depending on the tempo of the music.

The baby can not only hear, but also remember sounds. The fetus develops short-term memory. There is also evidence of the presence of long-term memory, which allows you to retain information after birth. Therefore, more and more often, doctors recommend pregnant women to sing and listen to classical music. In addition, various medicinal properties of musical works have also been identified. For example, the works of Beethoven and Brahms contribute to a more active reaction of the fetus, speed up the work of internal organs, and the music of Mozart and Vivaldi has a calming effect.

There are several ways for an unborn child to listen to music: either the child perceives the sounds heard by the mother, or special headphones can be applied to the stomach. However, in the second option you need to be very careful and not overdo it with sound, so as not to damage the hearing organs that have not yet formed. However, the baby will be more influenced by the music that the mother likes. After all, if music only causes antipathy, and, consequently, negative emotions, then this negatively affects the emotional perception of the little one.

With all this, nothing can replace the voice of the parents for a child. They are the ones he hears most often, especially his mother. And dad - distantly, with interference. But he gets used to their voices, so he needs to talk to his “stomach” more. By the way, some scientists advise dads to talk to their unborn baby through the mother’s ear, since the child feels almost all signals coming from the outside world through the mother’s perception. And conversations with the baby will show him that he is loved and very much expected.