there is an air water interface
this could reduce sound transmission to the baby of voices other than the mother
unless they are in contact with the maternal abdomen
if you stand over a pool and shout at someone underwater
the transmission through water is very good
the problem is the air water interface
it will not affect the transmission of the mother voice to the womb
a countervailing factor is the surface area
a small womb not well applied to the skin may have limited transmission
a larger womb making good contact with the skin
has a large receptive surface area
anecdotally
some women have told me their baby disliked some songs when heard in the environment
and the babies would complain by excessive kicking
in the old days
to understand and analyze an article of scientific literature
one needed to read widely and a lot and use wisdom
interpretation of scientific literature was very much like interpretation of scripture
different people could read the same thing and draw different conclusion
no one has been appointed to be omniscient
even if they were appointed, they still would not be omniscient
now criticism of scientific literature is widely practiced by people who have published little if anything
there is a set of rote rules that can be applied by those who have little knowledge or experience related to the issue at hand
it is now presumed that expert opinion is relatively worthless compared to a randomized trial
while expert opinion could simply be the way we have always done it-it could be wrong
it might not be
would you believe a medical student with a trial over a surgeon with decades of experience
each is really valid
the point about a trial being more credible than expert opinion
that is accepted on faith because it has not been proven in a trial
i think that interpretation of scientific literature is no more objective than scripture
and if one could blindly apply a set of rules without knowledge of the relevant issues
then that application is doomed to produce little of value
First of all, science can never prove a negative statement—the best that science can do is that the statement is not shown to be positive after empirical evidence of many samples (say, 100,000+). Practically speaking, it is a strong statement for the negative. For example, science can never disprove the existence of an invisible pink unicorn.
I sincerely believe that devices that can affect fetal well-being have to be FDA regulated. Why? There are some anecdotal evidence that such devices could do permanent damage, such as permanent hearing loss or autism (see Amazon reviews). This is not about entrepreneurial spirit—this is about the society’s well being. Misrepresentation of evidence that could do permanent damage has to be absolutely curtailed. Thus, I would rather see such devices pass a clinical trial. Moreover, if we don’t require clinical trial, any con artists could “invent” a whizbang device with fantastic claims and any gullible well-meaning parents are going to swallow it whole.
I am, for one, will not believe any claims without substantive evidence, especially the fake evidence offered by BabyPlus. It is an affront to scientifically minded people. I want to see at least some evidence, as indicative in my first post. So, there is no change in my tone.
The concept of prenatal learning is still ridiculous given the conditions in the womb. Firstly, the major source of learning, if at all is happening, it is going to be through the hearing. We know that fetal hearing is developed by 26-27 week of pregnancy (or Gestational Age / GA). So, before then, learning could hardly happen. Look at BabyPlus’s FAQ; they recommended the learning from 18 weeks of pregnancy (GA). While I understand that some babies could develop hearing early, but 18 week GA is pure rubbish! Mother’s heartbeat and breathing sound is at 70-110db, and that’s very loud. It would be very hard to learn under that kind of noise. Plus, external voice will be greatly muffled in the womb—external voice is attenuated by 5-50db (5db for low voice, 20-30db for high voice, and up to 50db for vocal-range voice). Yes, so low voice could still be heard (given 5 db attenuation), but not vocal range or even above. Even low voice that is strong enough to penetrate the womb “infrastructure” could induce permanent hearing loss due to its energy levels. So, there’s my evidence.
There are lots to be discovered and I am definitely interested in learning a lot further about this idea. I have no doubt that babies could have capacities to learn.
I’ve been looking through this thread and it seems that a lot of the discussion was more about the product (BabyPlus), then about Prenatal Learning per se.
As such I wanted to encourage everyone to keep discussion here focused on Prenatal Learning and if you would like to discuss the BabyPlus, its pros ans cons or anything else to do with it, you can open a new thread in our Product Review Board http://forum.brillkids.com/product-discussions-and-reviews/ , which was created for that very purpose.
Then there is another not-too-related discussion about Down syndrome, prenatal stimulation and the outcomes. I think, Paddy Jim Baggot MD , you will get more input for the questions you’ve posed, if you will open a separate topic in this Board for it and just list your questions or what you are looking for in your research.
Keeping discussions separated, will hep everyone to get better participation and will help others to find what they are looking for.
Also, as a side note. It seems to me that there was some misunderstanding among participants in this discussion, which was possibly caused by not clarifying what exactly they meant when they said “Prenatal Learning”. I am sure everyone has more to agree then to disagree on the topic, if less assumptions are made. I do not think anyone was trying to make any outrageous claims or make anyone feel bad with some generalizations. Although it certainly looked a bit that way, judging from reactions. So I would invite everyone to engage in further discussion keeping in mind that if you do not agree with another forum member on something, chances are you might be talking about different things to start with ( ask for clarifications and offer your definitions). And then, as in every debate or discussion, there are going to be differences in opinion and differences in personal experiences. So kindly take that in consideration.
The points I need to get across is: If prenatal learning were real, why commercial products like BabyPlus had to fake their “scientific paper”? And calling it “after 25 years of research”? What?!
Prior to the paper I just reviewed, there’s only conflicting and superficial evidence about it. For example: Prenatal music—some evidence says good, some bad. The sample sizes are typically small and the end measure is somewhat iffy and tend to be qualitative, like the frequency of sucking or “being a happy baby”. I rarely see papers mentioning experiments with brain-related measurements, like EEG or fMRI, or more objective and quantitative measures, even. Even then, when there’s some, the control is insufficient. The problem with music stimulation experiments is that there is no distinction that the music benefits the baby directly or through his mother. We are pretty clear that mother’s womb is an insular environment and is pretty secluded from external stimuli. Hence, a lot of people would think that the music treatment affects mom’s mood more than the baby. We also know that mom’s mood affect baby’s mood and good mood positively correlates with baby learning. But calling prenatal music stimulation as “learning” is a huge stretch. The same goes with meditation, etc. Hence, my conclusion.
On the other hand, the paper I referred to above made direct links between neural changes and external stimuli and offer some suggestive evidence on learning. However, it is still unclear what the neural changes mean and what scope it entails. I think it is a worthy follow up. It is a very recent paper (published Aug 26, 2013). I’m pretty sure that follow up studies will ensue soon after.
@robbyjo: You can prove a negative, I can prove that I am not a man. I suppose you cannot prove that prenatal learning is impossible, but again, that was not what I asked you to do. You said prenatal learning is absurd, which I interpreted as you saying it’s illogical. One might not be able to prove that PL as a whole is impossible, but one would be capable of taking individual claims and disproving them - that off course will be worthless, but my point is, technically you can provide proof to support your claims if they were true. (Note that I jokingly asked you to provide proof because you asked me to provide proof of something I didn’t even say.)
I really don’t think you’ve done even a fraction of the homework on this topic, but let’s assume you are correct in saying there is no concrete studies or proof that supports PL, so in that case it would truly just be a theory. The theory on the other hand is supported by facts, like physical characteristics of premature babies and newborns etc.
I know you’re mainly talking about BabyPlus, but clearly nobody else on this thread is, because of the title you chose and your initial attack on PL in your opening post. Personally I agree with you, I don’t like the product and I was aware of the false advertisement (I think most of us were as the product has been discussed at length.) I don’t believe it’s harmful though.
Just to be clear, I’ve been talking about PL in the general sense, as in, the prenatal mind’s capability of forming a memory from sensory input in it’s surroundings, whether it was generated deliberately/naturally/coincidentally and regardless of the duration the memory lasts. I’m rejecting what you say about prenatal learning, assuming your definition of prenatal learning is similar to that of mine.
Prior to coming to this forum, I was already aware about the music and speech (and other) stimulation from the news since a long time now (year 2000-ish?). As I dug deeper in the actual scientific articles whenever some news popped up, I usually found the scientific support of such stimulation to be lacking or tenuous. I knew conditions of the womb, plus PL or even prenatal stimulation would be extremely hard to prove, if at all possible. So, it is not that I was not doing “a fraction of the homework”—I do not believe oversensationalized reports of popular science or blogs, I go to the article directly to read what the authors actually claim.
I came across this PL forum and was quite surprised to see commercial products for PL. At that time, discussions of two products popped up: BabyPlus and HeGuru. BabyPlus claimed “25 years of research”—this is bogus. 25 years of research on things that are “within our reach” would imply mature research, which is absolutely not the case. So, I decided to read again over 30 scientific articles on PL or prenatal stimulation at that moment and basically found none substantive. A vast majority of the papers are things related to substance abuse (alcohol, tobacco, narcotics) or stress / depression-related or animal trials (rats, mice). Go search and you’ll see. No clinical trials. Nothing. I know plenty of articles confirming good exercise and nutrition are beneficial to baby’s learning experience, but no substantive PL paper (until yesterday).
Research into fetal learning is difficult. ... The majority of the studies of fetal learning have used some form of acoustic stimulation. However, there are wide methodological variations in the acoustic frequency and volume of the stimulus used, the exposure protocols, and whether the sound source was applied directly to the maternal abdomen or in the environment. All these variables can influence the amount and quality of the sound reaching the fetus and thus its effects 22,23.
...
There have been two reports of studies describing classical conditioning in the human fetus using vibroacoustic stimulation 31. In the first, only one subject was used and no data were given. In the second, whilst classical conditioning was demonstrated, others have been unable to reproduce the response 2. More recently maternal relaxation (US) and music (CS) have been reported to produce fetal conditioning after more than 20 prenatal exposures. In the newborn the CS induced a quiet awake state in conditioned fetuses 32. We chose not to use this approach in our studies because it is methodologically complex, has not been reliably confirmed as a method for the fetus, is non-physiological, and has been reported to occur in anenchepalic fetuses 2.
...
[b]We have not examined whether this effect is specific to this stimulus or sound exposure in general. Furthermore, there is no information that such effects are either long lasting or beneficial. Most of the evidence that we have on prebirth experiences affecting later childhood or adulthood is anecdotal, unscientific, and based on subjective interpretation.[/b] Future properly designed prospective randomized control studies should involve long-term follow-up of subjects and controls to examine the duration of such effects and their benefit or harm.
(my emphasis)
Table 5 of this paper summarizes 10 studies, saying 1 “yes”, 1 contradictory, and 8 “no” or “unknown” in the “Demonstrated fetal response” column. Out of these 10, only 2 declared neonatal learning possible, but only 1 of them [which is this paper] use a real randomized prospective study.
Sadly enough, this paper’s results are weak. However, I agree with the authors’ last paragraph (that I quoted above). Remember that this is a 2002 paper. To my surprise, however, after some search, I found this paragraph remains true.
Yes, surely you can prove trivial negative statements and logic or math statements, but nobody could be capable of taking individual (scientific) claims and disproving such claims. Let’s take, for example, “hypertension cannot be a cause of traffic accident”—it’s a negative statement. We’ve got data from millions of traffic accidents, but no reports so far (at least, not that I know of) specify “hypertension” as the cause of death. I doubt that we could even prove such statement even if we have 1 billion more traffic accident data points. One could hypothesize that hypertension causes stroke on the road or road rage that leads to death, but nobody link hypertension to traffic accidents.
Now, if your definition of learning is “something that affects neural wiring”, there you got your point, especially so proven in the paper I linked. However, stroke, hallucination, nightmare, trauma, and many others also may affect neural wiring (and new memory too), but they’re not learning.
Quote from: soccermom7573 on December 02, 2013, 02:03:47 PM
Respectfully I have to disagree with a couple of things you said Robbyjo. Meditation and music isn’t just for babies comfort but mothers as well. You may be able to say “Scientific” all you want but babies are miracles from God and there is no science involves with a bond between mother and babies, born or unborn. Babies will respond to mother and fathers voices in the womb. My daughter responded to both of our voices when I was juts 5-6 months pregnant. At birth, every time we talked and she was awake she would turn straight to us, because she knew our voices.
I listened to gospel music and country music practically everyday of my pregnancy, and my husband and I sang songs as well. Even now, if there is gospel music or country music on, our daughter immediately relaxes, coos along with it and even relaxes enough to fall asleep to it at times.
You say there is no scientific way about bonding…that’s because not everything can be explained with science. The bond between a mother and a child has been present long before science ever was.
the scientific sound to “improve” the condition of your baby is through health and exercise…really. Yes ofcourse, eating healthy and exercising PROPERLY ONLY WHAT YOU’RE ABLE TO DO WITHOUT OVER DOING IT AND UNDER CONDITIONS OF A DOCTOR are healthy for an unborn baby. However, that is not all a baby needs is it.
Not believing in prenatal education, but you believe in science correct? So science has come and has even proven with ultrasounds that babies in the womb learn to grasp, suck their thumb at times, kick, breath, etc, Even if babies do not learn in the womb how to count because there is no “scientific data” does not mean they are unable to do so. They listen to their mothers voice and the voices that are constantly around. They feel the touch of a hand on their mothers belly. And there is most certainly that bond between mothers and children in the womb and out.
(End Quote)
(Quote Robbyjo)
Firstly, I think you need to reread my comments: Nowhere did I say that music and mediation do not benefit the mothers. What I do object is “prenatal learning”, which I think is absurd.
Secondly, your comment sounds like that it is either science or God, which implies that there is no godly scientist on earth. This is a false dichotomy. It is a very clear stance on your earlier post that got deleted. I hope you stop making such comments.
Thirdly, maternal bond is so far proven on the emotional health of the babies and the moms. There is some smattering evidence scientific that this is the case. However, nothing is known on the education front. Granted, emotional balance can propel learning, but that’s a different story.
Fourthly, auditory organ is complete by 26-28 weeks (which means 6 months). Babies may respond to external voice or stimuli. However, calling it “learning” is a huge stretch.
Fifthly, let’s say that science later can “prove” prenatal learning. Follow up questions still remain: What is the advantage academically vs. those who do not have such learning? What scope is the advantage? Which methods are beneficial? The existing “learning” hold the potential to harm the fetus.
That said, it is up to the parents to do meditation, music, or whatever approach. I think parents do have the rights to know what has been scientifically proven or not. To me, anecdotal evidence does not hold sway since I cannot ascertain that it is not a random chance.
(End Quote)
(Quote soccermom7573)
Posted by: soccermom7573
Insert Quote
I deleted that post myself so therefore there were no arguments about the topic. You so kindly stated why start a flame-war conversation. Then you started another topic starting one yourself. I am no longer going to reply to you, or your general idea of prenatal learning, seeming on the other thread you have changed your stance numerous times. It’s obvious you believe in science alone. I however do not. My faith is God. Yes some science can be proven as stated in the other thread, that’s great but my belief is still in God and that’s where it will stay. I am going to respectfully agree to disagree for these conversations are not worth any further of my time. I wish you good luck and whether or not you take it may God bless you and your family and have a wonderful Christmas and happy new year!
I am trying to understand your meaning robbyjo, you have inconsistencies in which you’re talking about. Which indeed is confusing us all about your true stance. You keep mentioning where is the proof for prenatal learning…Where is the proof that Baby Plus is harmful?
If something indeed were harmful than yes I agree it should not be used.
You talk about baby plus one second and then the concept of prenatal learning.
You state music and meditation has little to no help towards an unborn baby, and then say that it does? Yor opinions keep opposing each other. Therefore I think is the trouble we are all having with trying to understand what you are truly saying.
@robbyjo
So you’ve fine combed the entire internet on this topic, every language, all restricted documents and also went back in time just to check on the Egyptians and Mayans did you? That’s wonderful! I hope (for your part) that you’ve not been doing your research the same way as you’ve been reading posts here because that would mean you’ve wasted a lot of your time. (You can do a lot of research on any given topic and still only cover a fraction, so one should be careful when assuming you know all of any given subject)
I say again, I was joking about you providing proof of PL being absurd, but for someone who wants to play this scientific/logical angle, you’re very quick to make all kinds of hasty assumptions.
The evidence is purely anecdotal—Scan over Amazon’s negative reviews. Consistent autism reports, which might have some merit. Some deafness reports appear to have been deleted now. I am not saying that these reports are believable—everything has to be investigated. However, when you see dozens of similar reports, they may indicate something. This is why I said “could”.
You state music and meditation has little to no help towards an unborn baby, and then say that it does? Yor opinions keep opposing each other. Therefore I think is the trouble we are all having with trying to understand what you are truly saying.
I have been saying that there’s little to no support of prenatal music or meditation to the baby (but there may be sizable benefit to the mom). When you read dozens of articles on, say prenatal music exposure, and found half supports and the other half contradicts PL, what do you conclude? Especially so, when the paper I quoted above said “it is methodologically complex, has not been reliably confirmed as a method for the fetus, is non-physiological, and has been reported to occur in anenchepalic fetuses 2.”
You talk about baby plus one second and then the concept of prenatal learning.
I am talking about both. Baby Plus is absurd. The concept of prenatal learning is absurd until it is proven otherwise, given the many difficulties, as the scientific paper I referenced says (and a lot more).
@MamaOfWill:
So you've fine combed the entire internet on this topic, every language, all restricted documents and also went back in time just to check on the Egyptians and Mayans did you? That's wonderful! I hope (for your part) that you've not been doing your research the same way as you've been reading posts here because that would mean you've wasted a lot of your time. (You can do a lot of research on any given topic and still only cover a fraction, so one should be careful when assuming you know all of any given subject)
When you do research, you survey a sizable portion of recent articles (say, within the last 10 years or even newer). These articles will reference (a sizable amount of) older articles and summarize them to show that these authors do know their field and are not claiming things out of the blue. Such summaries are adequate most of the times and thereby saving the time of the researchers that come after these authors. The reference to older articles are useful to pull out details, whenever necessary. There is another class of scientific paper called “review papers” which summarizes ALL knowledge of the topic so far. There are review articles published every 2-3 year (depending on the field). So, you don’t need to read absolutely everything. Just a good sampling and it will do. After all, PL is unlike archaeology, so no need to read ancient documents.
I already offered you the scientific articles I based my opinions on and you offered none. I am not sure why you are claiming me making hasty assumptions.
I admit that I’m too lazy to research this topic, I don’t know much about the studies done and I probably made a whole lot of hasty assumptions myself, my apologies. :blink:
Maybe I’ve been living in this bubble where everybody agrees with the idea of PL and to me it became something that’s generally excepted, maybe this assumption even drove me to see things during my pregnancy that were not really there.
Good luck robbyjo, have fun and I hope you find what you’re looking for.
I do not believe it to be absurd. I mean think about it, there were once people saying it was impossible, and absurd that babies can learn early…and look at this website. There are plenty of kids now with little reader, little math, and little musician. and they’re all learning as babies. Something once though to be absurd is now a possibility and is in a lot of people’s everyday lives.
@MamaOfWill:
DeCasper’s paper is actually a seminal paper, showing that newborn younger than 3 days prefers their mother’s voice to other’s. This is a very old paper and groundbreaking at that time. The significance of the paper that babies start learning very quickly since they were born, quoted as follows:
Thus, within the first 3 days of postnatal development, newborns prefer the human voice, discriminate between speakers, and demonstrate a preference for their mothers' voices only with limited maternal exposure.
The neonate’s capacity to rapidly acquire a stimulus discrimination that control behavior (15) could provide the means by which limited postnatal experience with the mother results in preference for her voice. The early preference demonstrated here is possible because newborns have auditory competencies adequate for discriminating individual speakers: they are sensitive to rhythmicity (16), intonation (17), frequency variation (1,13), and phonetic components of speech (18). Their general sensory competency may enable other maternal cues, such as her odor (19) and the manner in which she handles her infant (20), to serve as supporting bases for discrimination and vocal preference.
However:
Prenatal (intrauterine) auditory experience may also be a factor. Although the significance and nature of intrauterine auditory experience in humans is not known, perceptual preferences and proximity-seeking responses of some infrahuman infants are profoundly affected by auditory experience before birth (21).
To me, the last quote shows that this experiment wasn’t designed to show prenatal learning (PL) since none was known back then. It was unknown back then how human voice could penetrate the insular womb condition that is full of loud maternal biological noise. Thus, the authors only sought early postnatal learning, if you will. If they really sought to prove PL, they ought to provide another group of infants whose mothers were forbidden to talk or to handle their babies until the experiment was concluded.
@soccermom7573:
I am open to the latest developments. I want to see how prenatal stimuli affect babies either immediately or in longer term. So far, the science is inchoate and it is not even there yet. I do believe that babies can learn from day 1. It has been proven for so many times for a long time already and it is indisputable now. The paper linked by MamaOfWill was published in 1980, which is talking exactly about learning since day 1.
You are entitled to your own opinion. However, I earnestly ask you to not brand any scientifically inclined people as unbeliever since it is simply not true.