What does the fetus feel in the belly? The fetus feels you and feels the world into which it will be born
In China, age is calculated differently than in the Western world: on the first birthday the baby is not 12 months old, but 21 because the nine months spent in the belly are also counted.
"The uterus is a protected environment, but the fetus does not feel out of this world at all", says Ludwig Janus, psychotherapist and director of the Internationale Studiengemeinschaft für pränatale und perinatale Medizin und Psychologie in Heidelberg, Germany, an institution specializing in prenatal medicine and psychology. "This means that the baby in the belly participates in the life of the mother, she feels the environment in which she will be born".
This awareness is fascinating, but it can also become a source of stress. Many pregnant women ask themselves: Does the fetus really feel everything I feel? And will he feel my doubts, my worries and my needs, my frenzy? What do I have to do to make sure I'm okay?
Science has tried to give answers, here are the most important discoveries.
Mom passes food and sensations. The unborn child is not only fed, the mother's organism also passes a lot of information to it: the placenta transmits the messengers of sensations, the hormones, to the baby. If, for example, the expectant mother is stressed, the cortisol level rises. Scientists have been able to detect this from umbilical cord blood measurements: with a delay of just a few pulses, the high stress level also reaches the fetus.
Babies in the belly react differently to stress: some get agitated, the movements are nervous, others become small, bring their legs and arms very close to the body. But the baby also participates in the positive feelings of the mother: endorphins and other happiness hormones reach the baby as soon as the mother relaxes, she is happy and happy.
Researchers measured the brain flows of the unborn babies (at the twentieth week) when the mother imagined a particularly pleasant situation: well, it turned out that the oscillations of the curves became smaller and smaller and that therefore the child was able to enjoy the positive thoughts of the mum.
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Do you know that ...
The study "The baby bump: a world to be discovered", conducted in 2005 at the German University of Trier by psycho-biologist Margarete Rieger reached some important conclusions:
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there is no connection between weight, head circumference, overall vitality of the newborn and the stress of the pregnant mother;
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ambivalent feelings or difficult stages in the mother's life do not damage the child's mood. Only if the stress is very high and lasts for a long time could the child be affected;
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the female body activates defense mechanisms to protect the unborn child from stress: from the third to the sixth month of pregnancy a certain enzyme develops in the placenta which is able to deactivate cortisol up to a certain level, the transmitter of stress in the blood, thus protecting the little one. These mechanisms are not sufficient only if the stress is very high and lasts for a long time.
Pictures of the fetus from 4 to 40 weeks
go to the galleryHow does the fetus grow in 40 weeks of gestation? Here are 36 exciting pictures of the little one growing into the baby bump in the mom, week after week. Fourth to ...
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- development of the fetus
