For the first half of her pregnancy, Suzanne Ling played classical music for her unborn child whenever she drove her car. She had heard about "the Mozart effect" from a friend, who swore that classical music soothed her baby both pre- and post-delivery.Around week 20, Ling discovered BabyPlus, an egg-shaped device that she wore around her abdomen. It played 16 "audio lessons" of heartbeatlike tones and promised to teach a fetus to recognize patterns and differentiate sounds.
After baby Alexander was born, Ling was certain that he was especially engaged, aware and smart. She's convinced that his exposure to the in-utero "lessons" will help him avoid two conditions she fears: autism and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder.
BabyPlus is one of a small number of "prenatal learning systems" being marketed these days. With such names as Lullabelly, Bellysonic, FirstSounds and Ritmo, pictured below, they offer up everything from soothing tones to foreign languages. Yet even as some parents pay upward of US$100 (HK$780) for these devices, experts say there is no proof to support the claims.
"It probably won't do any good, and it can in fact be harmful," says Janet DiPietro, a developmental psychologist at Johns Hopkins University who has studied fetal development for 20 years.
Measuring the effect is difficult. How can you tell whether your baby would have turned out less smart without a prenatal learning system? A recent study in the journal Child Development fo
und that fetuses, starting at 30 weeks, can acclimate to sounds over time and that they develop memory at 34 weeks. But does that suggest that the learning proposed by the devices can occur?Dutch obstetrician-gynecologist Jan Nijhuis, who conducted the study, hesitates to make a correlation. "How could that be proven?" he said. "Why would one interfere with the natural environment of the fetus, who is busy enough?"
People agree on this much: starting at 18 weeks, fetuses can listen to the mother's heartbeat, voices and other noises of daily life. Makers of prenatal learning devices say that the period between 18 and 40 weeks is an opportunity to give soon-to-be-born babies a head start.
Experts say evolution has already created the ideal environment for the human brain to develop - a mother's womb. The devices could damage a baby's hearing and disrupt its sleep, DiPietro says. "Fetuses are almost always asleep. This is akin to taking your newborn, and when they're asleep, blasting Mozart at them. That's exactly what you're doing with these devices."
THE WASHINGTON POST
