Wheres just about everybodys first concert hall?
A. It’s also the first place to hear a heartbeat, conversational voices, and if the concert hall bearer (pregnant Mom) so chooses, Mozart or the latest rock group. The womb sound system is so good–transmission via wraparound liquid–that fetal hearing impairment can occur upon repeated exposure to loud noises, say physiologists. Only in the last few decades has it become accepted that fetuses can hear before birth, probably starting around the 26th week, says W. von Raffler-Engel in “The Perception of the Unborn.” Before science validated this old folk wisdom, Moms would make tentative statements like, “I know it’s not possible and must be coincidental, but my baby seems to move whenever I go to a concert.” Nowadays pregnant women talk openly of reading to baby- to-be, who they know is “all ears.” And it has become common knowledge among the young that a new Mom can quiet baby by humming theme music from her favorite soap operas.
