Discoveries
Our research has led to some startling and interesting findings
Did you know?
The fetus likes its mother’s favourite TV show
Our research examining fetal learning found babies learn and recognise the theme tune of their mothers favourite TV show in the womb. We examined babies of mothers who watched the TV soap ‘Neighbours’ during their pregnancy and compared them with babies of mothers who didn’t watch the show. After birth the babies who had heard the Neighbours theme tune before birth became quiet and ‘paid attention’ to the tune when played, whereas babies who hadn’t heard this before ignored the tune.
Leftie or rightie – its all determined in the womb
Approximately 90% of us are right handed and 10% left handed. But when does this start? By using ultrasound we observed babies sucking their thumb in the womb. Just as with adults, approximately 10% preferred to suck their left thumb and 90% their right thumb. By observing babies at 10 weeks of gestation, when they first produce independent arm movements, 90% were observed to move their right arm more. It appears as soon as we can show left and right movements our predisposition for being a left-, or right-hander is set.
Who talks more?
Observing fetus’ mouth movements between 16-18 weeks we found that female fetuses moved their mouths more often, and for longer duration, than did male fetuses. Some have suggested this is evidence of continuity of development from before to after birth, but we couldn't possibly comment.