Your baby is listening to you - and the world around them - long before they鈥檙e born. Speech and language expert Dr Danielle Matthews explains how this helps with their early language development, and exactly what they can hear.
From the pitch of your voice to loud bangs and even music, your baby is surrounded by sounds when they鈥檙e in the womb. And incredibly, they start picking up on these noises very early on.
Mum
I usually play Punjabi music - baby starts rolling, kicking, taking different positions. My bump is going that way.
Dad
You actually see the bump move.
Trish - Health Visitor
At this stage in your pregnancy, the baby can hear your voices.That helps them feel calmer as well because it鈥檚 voices that they're used to.
Cristina - SLT
Your baby really is listening, they're getting ready to be a language learner even before they're born. What your baby's tuning into first is something called prosody. This is the rhythm and pitch patterns of your speech, a bit like the tune of your voice. For example, English has a different tune to Japanese and your baby is already beginning to learn this.
Mum
We speak two languages which is Punjabi and English. I usually say 鈥淚s my baby hungry? Let's go into the kitchen and see what we can make today."
Cristina - SLT
By eighteen weeks your baby's ears are beginning to send signals to the brain about the sounds that they can hear. There's one sound above all else that they're learning about and that's the sound of their mum.
Mum
I usually spend most of the time at home so I just talk with baby bump.
Cristina - SLT
By 23 weeks they can hear the muffled sounds of their mum's voice and by 24 weeks they respond to that voice. Their mum's voice can calm them down and they can become more still as they listen to it.
Dad
Usually, whenever I come home from work before we eat,I usually sit and talk to the baby and just say, rub the baby and just go 'Hi baby, how's your day' things like that, just until the baby gets used to my voice.
Trish - Health Visitor
Yes absolutely.
Cristina - SLT
When it comes to recognising and processing speech it鈥檚 the left temporal lobe of your baby's brain that is the most active part. When your baby hears their favourite people talking brain starts to develop important speech processing skills which set them up to be future word learners.
Dad
Haway pet, how you doing?
And it鈥檚 not long before they鈥檙e hearing even more.
Danielle says, 鈥淔rom the third trimester of pregnancy, babies start hearing speech. They鈥檙e not picking up on individual words or sounds. Instead, everything sounds muffled to them: they鈥檙e surrounded by liquid in the womb so what they can hear sounds like what we hear when we鈥檙e underwater.
"But they are able to pick up on the prosody of language. This is the rhythm and melody of your voice and it鈥檚 a really important part of language development.鈥
Sending signals to their brain
Even in the womb, your baby's ears start to send signals to their brain about the sounds they are hearing.
鈥淏abies are hearing speech sounds in the womb and that begins to be processed in the left side of the brain. This is the language area of the brain that we use when we鈥檙e speaking鈥, explains Danielle.
鈥淭hat speech signal is going to completely change when they鈥檙e born - rather than sounding like it鈥檚 underwater, they鈥檒l hear the crisp detail of speech. But they鈥檒l still be able to match it up with sounds they heard in the womb.鈥
You've got a baby on the way
Well that's great, you can write a rap for them,
You don't need to wait.
Write a verse for your baby while they're still in the womb,
Familiarise them with your voice,
They'll be here soon.
Make a catchy melody, they may remember it.
If they like what they hear, you might even get a kick.
When you rap to them make sure it's smooth,
Not to scare them in there, but more to soothe.
Hello little baby, how are you today?
I wrote this rap for you, can you hear me ok?
If you can, let me know with a little kick.
Ooh I felt it.
Remix/Reload!
Hello little baby how are you today?
I wrote this rap for you, can you hear me ok?
If you can, let me know with a little kick.
Ooh, I felt it.
The sound and tone of your voice will stimulate baby in the womb
So you should know they benefit greatly.
Repeat the same rap for baby to get familiar,
So before they're born they might be a good listener.
So get your pen and pad,
Write a song to perform and rap to baby now,
Why wait til they're born?
What does the world sound like to babies in the womb?
To get an idea of exactly what your unborn baby can hear, Danielle says, 鈥淚magine you鈥檙e in a hotel room. You can鈥檛 hear what the people in the next room are saying, but you might be able to tell what language they are speaking from the rhythm or melody of their voices. You can probably tell if they鈥檙e speaking Italian rather than English for example. And it鈥檚 the same for unborn babies.鈥
Helping with language learning
This melody of speech is a big piece in the 鈥榩uzzle鈥 of language learning. Danielle adds, 鈥淲hen children are learning to talk they use all sorts of pieces of information to figure out what it is we鈥檙e talking about and how language works.
One piece of information they have very early on is this melody. We use it to organise our sentences and to mark what is new or given information. It鈥檚 a bit like when we write and put words in italics to make them stand out.
The fact babies are picking up on this in the womb, and already learning how sentences are structured, is exciting.鈥
Jojo:
It's really exciting to actually know that babies are hearing before birth.
The hearing starts to develop about 16 weeks in the womb.
If you think about it, the baby's ears are right down beside the pelvic bones, right towards the end of pregnancy as well.
So they're getting all the vibration, they're getting all the ups and downs and the tones of your voice.
Especially male voices, from outside the womb.
The male voice is lower, and if guys can get down into their lowest voice and talk to the bump, then actually the babies will remember they are already learning.
Let's just take what the baby hears all the time, day and night: the mother's heartbeat.
And you can find your pulse if you push two fingers into the side of the neck, right under the jaw.
So we take this pulse and we might then make a sound to the pulse, so the baby's getting our voice to the beat that they're hearing.
Are we noticing a response from the baby? Are they moving? Or do they become still?
Sometimes they become quite still. Because they're listening.
They're experiencing our connection with them.
Anything like that is connecting all these sensations for the unborn child and building those pathways in the brain before birth.
Yes, it's all happening.
Mum:
Twinkle, twinkle, little star
how I wonder what you are.
Benefits of talking to your bump
There are lots of lovely ways you can communicate with your bump, from singing to tapping out the rhythm of your heartbeat. But don鈥檛 worry if you don鈥檛 find time to do this.
鈥淚f you want to talk to your bump, that鈥檚 great鈥, says Danielle. 鈥淏ut don鈥檛 feel pressure to set aside time to do it. Just do what you do naturally and your baby will hear it.鈥
Even just talking on the phone or chatting to a friend will be picked up by your baby. And this is why, from the moment they鈥檙e born, babies prefer the sound of their mother鈥檚 voice to one they鈥檝e never heard. Awww.
