Some parents cling to the idea that playing music to an unborn child helps them become smarter and more spatially aware, and now there's a more direct way to go about it, with a tampon-style speaker called BabyPod.
Sticking a speaker up your vagina might not be the most enticing prospect in the world but there is a new Spanish study claiming it's proven babies respond to sound between 18 and 26 weeks into the pregnancy. The study finds babies are even able to move their mouths and tongues in response to the music.
In a new video released by the female-speaker company, singer Soraya performed Christmas carols to a room of expecting mothers all with the BabyPod hooked up as mother and child experience the music together for the first time. The performance was recorded from the gynecology clinic Institut Marquès in Barcelona, according to New York Magazine.
Aside from this being a very odd way to listen to music, there's also not a ton of research to back the claims that listening to music as an unborn child helps development. Sure, the idea that your child might somehow soak in the knowledge of Jimi Hendrix and his god-like guitar solos or the bombastic drum skills of Keith Moon is enticing, but the fact is that's probably not going to happen.
According to babycenter.com, there have been studies in the past that show babies respond to movement while in the womb, but doctors don't seem to yet know what that movement means, or if it means anything. Research shows that the babies will breath in rhythm to the music with some doctors claiming the soon-to-be-borns are taking in something about the music while others claim there's no real correlation.
Plus, BabyCenter points out that amniotic fluid is actually a good conductor of sound and un-born babies don't need more than a regular speaker at normal volume to hear the music.
