Music in the Womb

At London's University College Hospital, Obstetrician C. N. Smyth and Audiologist K. P. Murphy were trying to find out why some babies are born deaf. To their surprise, they discovered that even while normal babies are still in the womb they can not only hear musical tones, but usually respond to them by speeding up their heartbeat. The phenomenon may be observed as long as three months before the baby is due.

In their research, the British researchers report in the Lancet, they generated musical tones of 500 cycles per second (about an octave above middle C) and 4,000 cycles and transmitted them 'through the abdominal wall of the mother-to-be with an instrument like a telephone receiver. It made no difference whether the mother could hear the tones or not (the investigators tried it both ways). In tests of 290 women, 215 unborn babies responded to the 500-c.p.s. tone with an accelerated heart rate, but only 60 reacted to the screeching tone three octaves higher.

Knowledge that babies can hear in the womb is no mere scientific oddity, says Dr. Smyth: testing the fetus' response to sound enables the obstetrician to judge its health. In the series tested, two babies reacted normally at 30 weeks but failed at 34 weeks. Both were stillborn to diabetic mothers. Presumably, they could have been saved by Caesarean delivery if the change had been caught in time.

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