It is amazing that a baby of just fourteen weeks of gestation can hear sounds coming from outside. The ear is one of the first senses that completes its development within the uterus, around four and a half months of pregnancy. Even before birth, the baby becomes a hearing being.
When he hears the mother's voice or a relaxing music, the baby calms down, while if we expose him to shrill noises, the baby becomes restless. Not only can he distinguish the mother's voice, the father's voice and the familiar voices, but he shows a predilection for the female voices and especially for the mother's.
Being so sensitive to outside sounds, we must start caring for the baby's hearing health since he is in the womb.
Hearing pollution is a daily reality, especially if we live in cities with heavy traffic, near an airport or highway. Although the sounds reach the baby muffled by the amniotic fluid, it is still worrying that the loud environmental noises alter its tranquility within the warm mother's womb.
It is not a minor issue. According to Juan Luis Leyton Meléndez, speech therapist and professor at the Universidad Andrés Bello de Chile "those mothers who live in environments with high noise levels that exceed 80 decibels (large avenues, airports, metallurgical companies, etc.) have a high probability that their babies are born with some hearing deficit, attention deficit or hyperactivity, which is why it is currently emphasized to create environments free of intense noises for mothers. ”
Excessive noise in pregnancy can have consequences on the baby's hearing health and even trigger attention disorders. It would be necessary to try to stimulate the baby with relaxing music and avoid unnecessarily exposing oneself to environments with a lot of noise during the whole pregnancy.
