Unisar Prenatal Heart Monitor manual HOW Your Unborn BABY’S Brain Develops, Research Findings

Third Trimester – The nervous system has matured and becomes fully formed; the brain enters a rapid growth phase; movements are more coordinated and muscles are stronger; the fetus moves to the rhythm of music; sight has developed and response to light is evident; movement is less frequent but stronger toward the end of the ninth month; and growth and development continue until birth.

HOW YOUR UNBORN BABY’S BRAIN DEVELOPS

Your baby’s brain begins developing almost immediately and by the fifth month the number of brain cells your baby will have for the rest of her life is determined. From this point forward her brain develops by increasing the size and complexity of the cells already created. Around the eighth month your unborn baby’s brain changes significantly. At this time it doubles in weight and the connections between the brain cells, known as synapses, become even more complex.

The following is the structure of a brain cell:

1.Dendrites – receive messages from the body

2.Cell body – decides whether to send the message received from the dendrites or to store it

3. Axon – transmits messages received from the cell body

As the cells get larger, the axons grow longer and the dendrites become an increasingly complex system of multiple connections like branches of a tree. The more stimulation the cells receive, the more complex these dendrites become, resulting in a more developed brain.

The number of brain cells your baby is born with helps determine her potential, but it is also the number of connections between these cells that determines her final intelligence. Helping to increase the number of connections and the complexity of the brain cells with stimulation increases the probability of your baby having a higher intelligence level and IQ.

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RESEARCH FINDINGS

It is now known that stimulation of the senses affects the growth of the brain cells and if a fetus has little stimulation in the womb, fewer connections are made. Specialists in fetal and infant brain development have agreed that stimulating your unborn baby’s senses can affect the development of the connections between the brain cells. In fact, the lack of these connections can actually cause cells to die, especially in the eighth month of pregnancy. 2

By the end of the fifth month your baby can hear and begins to learn, and you can tell when she is reacting to external stimulation. In one case, pregnant mothers actually had to leave a concert of classical music before it was over because their babies were kicking so hard in time to the music that they couldn’t tolerate it. 3

In another case, mothers were asked to play their favorite classical music to their unborn baby for ten minutes a day at a volume that was just a little louder than a normal speaking voice. It was discovered that the babies recognized the change in their environments immediately as was evidenced by their heart rates increasing noticeably. What is also interesting is that the unborn baby does not respond in this way to many single notes even if they are played very loud and very close to her. 4

Yet another study showed that unborn babies who had classical music played to them from the middle of the fifth month until they were born, for 10 minutes, twice a day, developed more quickly, began to talk up to six months earlier, and had greater intellectual development than those babies who had not had classical music played to them inside the womb.5

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