Music in the brain of the child
From an anatomical point of view, the baby’s internal ear is completely developed by mid-pregnancy. However, this does not mean that from that moment on, the baby can hear everything that is going on. Although the auditory capacity is by far the most studied of the body functions, opinions still differ: when does the baby start hearing and what exactly does he hear?
What we know for sure is that while in the womb, the baby reacts to a wide variety of sounds. Also, we should consider that he grows in an environment naturally rich in sounds: his mother’s heartbeats, the sound of blood flowing in his own umbilical cord, the growling of his mother’s intestines. It has also been proven that, at least in the third trimester, the baby can perceive external noises like loud bangs, his parents’ voices, or even music, and that he responds to these stimuli by moving. He can even react to sounds that are of too high or too low frequency for the human ear to perceive (such as ultrasounds).
A few weeks or months later, the newborn is easily comforted when placed near his mother’s heart – perhaps because he remembers the sounds he used to hear when he was in the womb.