Research has shown that listening to music during pregnancy especially soothing music is known to have a very calming effect on both the mother and the child within her womb. Babies tend to usually hear sounds from outside the mother’s womb when they reach the 20th week of pregnancy. Hence doctors also recommend that from the 20th week of pregnancy the mother should listen to soothing music especially western classical or Indian classical. Women should not listen to loud music during pregnancy as that may have an adverse effect on the development of the child and its overall personality. It has been observed that listening to a few minutes of soothing music during pregnancy is an effective, safe and cheap way to de-stress and relax both the mother and the child. It is advisable to listen to music at a tempo of not more that 60 beats per minute as this is most beneficial to reach an optimum heart rate. In time the mother will find herself relaxing and the breathing also becomes slow in time with the music and shortly enough the heart rate follows. Doctors have said that the baby is able to feel maternal stress as early as 17 weeks into the pregnancy and if the mother experiences high levels of stress it can be detrimental to the mental and physical strength of the child.
Studies have also shown that babies who tend to listen to soothing music while they are still in the women of the mother tend to be more composed and calmer in their nature as compared to babies who have not listen to music while in the womb of their mother. However one should not overdo the listening of music while being pregnant as this may disrupt the sleeping pattern of the baby. Music is also known to hone skills in children and music also acts as a pre-linguistic tool that is useful in preparing the baby’s brain an dear to identify and distinguish between various sounds. The reason babies are able to listen to music while still in the womb of the mother is because the amniotic fluid that surrounds the baby is a very good conductor of sound. However one should keep in mind that the volume of the music should not increase beyond 70 decibels and the duration of the music should not be extended for more than an hour per day.
Submitted by P T on August 27, 2010 at 06:49
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