Sound Beginnings
Using sound during pregnancy!
A listening program for expectant mothers can benefit both mother and child. Studies based upon the research of Dr. Alfred Tomatis, a French Ear, Nose, and Throat physician have demonstrated improvements for both mother and child. Sound Beginnings, a sound listening program for expectant mothers, incorporates this research.
The ear is the only sensory system fully functioning in utero and our last sense to fade before we pass on. Sound is vibration that stimulates our ear and hearing, while also stimulating the entire body through our bone structure and cell structure. Sound relates to our basal body rhythms such as our heart rate and breath stream and sound vibration goes to our core.
A baby’s ear is developed at 4 ½ months in utero and the neurological system is myelinating at 7 months. The baby is listening to the mother’s heartbeat, respiration, and vocalizations during the pregnancy and becomes comfortable and familiar with those sounds. Because the birthing process is often traumatic to the baby, the mother’s voice, because of its familiar tone and rhythm, are soothing to the baby at birth. If the mother’s voice is introduced at a filtered level imitating the sounds within the utero, the baby often has an immediate response of feeling reassured.
When the mother listens to a sound therapy program during pregnancy, the benefits are shared with the infant. The effects of a sound therapy program for the mother are many:
These effects come about by repatterning how the mother processes sound vibration with a specific Listening Training Program. An important connection for this process is between the Vagus nerve and the ear, which shares the mother’s heartbeat, breathing, and body sounds with the fetus. Another important connection shared between mother and child is the transmission of sound through bone conduction through both bodies. Humans process sound through the air in the ear canal, through the bones of the body and through their connected cell structure. In a study done in Italy, the baby’s right ear is placed against the mother’s spinal cord before descending down the birth canal, thereby supporting the baby’s need to process through bone conduction before entering the world.
Because the sound program is enhancing the baby’s beginning developmental stages, mothers have reported their babies to demonstrate:
A study administered in 1988 in France at the Hospital of Vesoul’s Maternity Care Unit resulted in the program permanently becoming a part of their maternity offerings. The results demonstrated a significant change in anxiety levels of pregnant mothers with the use of the listening program. A similar, yet more recent study at the Hospital Foch de Suresnes also reported that pregnant mothers were more relaxed and had increased energy levels. Other outcomes reported were: