Bonding: The Benefits of Talking to Your Baby in Utero!

Sara summarizes fetal hearing development, then describes the benefits of talking to your baby during pregnancy--for both you and baby!

TRANSCRIPT:

Hello, welcome to episode number 76 of Birth Words. Today's episode is especially for expectant parents, and we'll be talking about why you should talk to your baby in utero.

Intro: Welcome to Birth Words. Words are powerful. What are you doing with yours? In this podcast, birth doula and applied linguistics scholar Sara Pixton invites you to be intentional, reflective, and empowering with your language as we come together to honor those who give birth. The work of birth words is to elevate the language surrounding pregnancy, birth and the postpartum period. Nothing in this podcast should be taken as medical advice.

Welcome to today's episode. Expectant parents, this is especially for you. Any other birth professionals who are listening, feel free to stick around, but I'm addressing this episode specifically towards expectant parents. We'll be talking about why you should talk to your baby during pregnancy.

So, for some background developmentally on how and why and when you should start talking to your baby. During the second trimester, earlier on in the second trimester, is when baby's hearing starts to develop. And at first, you are the only one who your baby can hear. Because rather than being able to really hear in the same ways that we do, the hearing that baby can do initially is just this body-to-body connection.

So you carrying your baby, speak to your baby, and that makes vibrations within your body which your baby begins to recognize as sound, and begins to understand what that means and starts to have experiences with hearing through that body-to-body sound vibration that can only happen between you and your baby. At this time, anybody else who speaks to your baby, your baby won't be able to hear them.

But as their hearing continues to develop throughout the second trimester, that will shift, and at that point, they're able to hear outside of your body. So your spouse or your partner or your parents or friends who speak to your baby, your baby will begin to be able to hear sounds that are exterior to your body.

So there's a little background on the development of hearing in utero. So, why would you want to talk to your baby while they're in utero? Well, one reason is that it can help to facilitate bonding with your baby. It can be difficult sometimes to form a relationship with somebody that you can't even see, though you can feel your baby growing inside you and developing, especially as they get larger, but talking is another thing that you can do to facilitate bonding with your baby.

So this can look like a one-sided conversation in which you could fill in for your baby's talk. Or imagine what your baby might be responding, where you just say, “Good morning, Baby, how are you feeling?” And you could speak to them by their name or Baby, or whatever feels comfortable to you.

You could narrate your activities. “We're gonna go for a walk now, do you like that?” And have these conversations with your baby. And you'll notice that these are the kinds of conversations that you may sort of have with your baby after it's born. Because even once you're able to see your baby, he or she will not be able to respond to you for at least a year. Linguistically, right? So this is one way to start.

Now, for many people, that feels a little bit uncomfortable, though. For some people that feels totally great and natural to have these conversations with your baby in utero, but for some people that feels a little uncomfortable. And so there are other things that you can do instead of talking specifically to your baby in this sort of one-sided conversation.

One is that you can read aloud. Whether that's children's books, or whether it's your textbook for a class that you're taking, or a work document that you're reading, reading aloud still gives your baby the opportunity to hear the sounds of your language and start to become accustomed to what language sounds like and develop in that way.

And then, of course, if you are speaking with others around your baby, obviously, if your baby is in your body, then anybody that you're speaking to is also around your baby, and your baby can also hear those conversations as well.

One reason that it might be useful to have the sorts of conversations we were initially talking about where you're directing talk towards your baby, is that back in 1995, Nelson and Fazio, some researchers, found and published their findings in the Infant Mental Health Journal—which I will link to in the show notes—they found that pregnant parents tend to engage in positive talk with their unborn baby. They had parents record the sort of talk that they did with, as they spoke to their baby in utero. And they contrasted that with their self-talk—what they would say, to and about themselves—and found that that tended to be more negative.

So we know that it's helpful to stay more, a lot more often, in a space of positive talk, and having the opportunity to have these conversations, one-sided conversations with babies tend to be more positive. So it's an activity that you can engage in that is likely to be a positive one for you, in contrast with perhaps more negative self-talk.

Of course, those are generalizations and just the findings of these researchers with that specific study, but it's something to consider as we're thinking and being mindful about the talk that we give towards our babies in utero, and the talk that we give to ourselves. Clearly, both you and your baby are worthy of positive talk. So, be mindful and purposeful about the way that you speak to yourself as you carry this baby and the way that you speak to that baby.

So, so far, we've talked a bit about why talking to your baby is a positive thing to do during pregnancy for babies’ hearing developing and facilitating this bonding relationship with you and having positive impacts for yourself as you engage in more positive talk.

But, more recently, some other researchers in 2013, Moon, Lagercrantz, and Kuhl, found and published in Acta paediatrica—again, I will link to that in the show notes—they found that from the newborn stage, babies do recognize the unique sounds of your language, in contrast with other languages.

So, before this research was done, it was thought that through the first several months of the child's life, they begin to differentiate between sounds that are only present in their parents’ language versus sounds that are found in other languages that they haven't had exposure to. And while that's certainly the case, that that is a differentiation that occurs both receptively and productively throughout infancy, it's also the case, they're finding, that even before birth, babies are able to begin to differentiate between sounds that are found in the language that they've been exposed to most—the languages of their parents that they've been surrounded by—and other languages.

And you may wonder, how on earth do you test something like that? You can't ask a baby, “hey, have you heard of this vowel sound before?” What they do is they have pacifiers in these babies, and they watch their sucking speeds, and different speeds indicate novelty versus something that's familiar. And so they found that when they expose them to vowel sounds, specifically of the language that they'd been exposed to in utero, they reacted in a way that said this with their sucking on the pacifier in a way that showed the researchers that these sounds are familiar to me. And when they were exposed to unique sounds that they hadn't heard, that were only found in other languages, those vowel sounds elicited a different sucking response from the infants that indicated to the researchers that this is novel. This is new. I haven't heard this sound before.

And even from the very early days of life, those differentiations were present, leading researchers to believe that in utero—before they're born—is when this differentiation begins. So you are a language instructor for your baby from the moment your baby's hearing starts to develop, and they hear you speaking with others, as their language con- - as their hearing continues to develop, you are giving the first language lessons to your child as you simply speak to others, to your baby directly, or as you read aloud, or do- - engage in any other sorts of speaking activities. You are your baby's very first language instructor, teaching your baby the language that they will, after they are born, grow up to learn and speak, and converse with. So that's pretty cool and powerful.

And of course, as you continue to talk to your baby after birth, it encourages linguistic development, which in turn leads towards gaining literacy skills in later childhood. So we talked before about how something you might do as you're speaking to your baby in utero, would be to just narrate your day. “Now we're going to go for a walk. Are you excited?” And when you do those same sorts of things with your infant, and with your toddler, you're encouraging their linguistic development and their literacy development as they recognize the symbolic meaning of words, the power and ability of words to communicate.

And seeing you model that behavior encourages them to engage in it themselves as they grow and develop. And that growth and development starts not from the moment of birth, but from even earlier, in the second trimester as hearing begins to develop. So I hope this has given you some food for thought, some things to think about with regard to language development, and positive talk and bonding with your baby, and all of the many great reasons to engage in talking with your baby.

Outro: If you're interested in sharing your ideas or experiences on the podcast, go to birthwords.com. If you're liking what you hear, please leave a review on your podcast app. For more resources about language for a better birth, subscribe to the monthly newsletter at birthwords.com and follow Birth Words on Instagram and Facebook.

REFERENCES:

Nelson, Lauren J., and Anthony F. Fazio. "Emotional content of talk to the fetus and healthy coping behaviors during pregnancy."  Infant Mental Health Journal 16, no. 3 (1995): 179-191.

Moon, Christine, Hugo Lagercrantz, and Patricia K. Kuhl. "Language experienced in utero affects vowel perception after birth: A two‐country study." Acta paediatrica 102, no. 2 (2013): 156-160.