FETUSES LIKE “BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY”

In a new study by the Institut Marquès Fertility Clinic in Spain, researchers wanted to see if fetuses responded to music in the womb. Using a special intravaginal speaker (* Hello!), the team tested 300 fetuses between 18 and 38 weeks of gestation. They played 15 songs for each fetus, ranging from sonatas by Bach and Beethoven, to traditional Spanish Christmas carols, to the hits of Queen, Adele and the Village People. The researchers watched for mouth and tongue movements on an ultrasound machine. They hypothesized that the babies who moved their mouths or tongues in response to the music were having the language centers of their brains stimulated and perhaps were learning to communicate back.
– Overall, the fetuses seemed more stimulated by classical music than pop or rock. Ninety-one percent of the babies showed mouth movements, and 73 percent stuck out their tongues when Mozart’s “A Little Night Music” played. Melodies by Bach, Prokofiev and Strauss all got more than 80 percent of the fetuses reacting.
– More than 80 percent of the fetuses responded to traditional drumbeats from Africa, a mantra from India and a Christmas carol from Spain.
– When it came to pop, the fetuses favorite song was, of course, “Bohemian Rhapsody” (90 percent of babies moved their mouths, and 40 percent stuck out their tongues), followed by the Village People’s “Y.M.C.A.”
– Songs by Adele, the Bee Gees and Shakira impressed 60 percent or less of the fetuses.
* You can’t not sing along to “Bohemian Rhapsody”, even if you don’t know the words yet.
* Did they play anything by the Goo Goo Dolls?
* It’s a cute story, but you know the fetuses would do the exact same thing if you played animal sounds.
* The mothers in the study with the intravaginal speaker kept asking scientists to drop the bass, for some reason.