Pictures show babies smile in the womb

[orangejulius]

http://www.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30000-12773312,00.html

[Lizzard[MPE]]

the doesnt look real

[az]

We have a video of Samira having a hickup in the womb

Doctors really really underestimated fetuses and babies, and still do, IMHO. A doctor told me that they didn't use painkillers on preemies just 20 years ago, because they believed a child that small can't feel pain! Had they taken one look at their faces, they would have seen them cry when they were stung with a needle.

AZ

[Brian R.]

Now the question is: do fetuses reflect any of the emotional stimuli given to their mothers?

[az]

Of COURSE!

When the mother is calm, the baby is too (basically), when she's happy, the baby grows better (long-term. You can see how mothers that were stressed or had a bad ralationship to their fetuses have less healthy babies), etc. etc.

A nice anecdote:

We always sung three songs to Samira when she was still in the womb, usually all three in a specific order, and as they were sleeping songs we sung them mostly when we went to bed. Daniela could feel how Samira got calmer (was it because she herself calmed down, or because Samira heard it? I think both - it was found out recently that fetuses start hearing pretty early).
When Samira was in the incubator for her first moths, she was also connected to monitors for heart frequency, oxygen saturation in her blood, etc. When we sang these songs, her pulse throttled a bit and her saturation went up.
They are still her favourite songs btw, she smiles every time we sing them.

AZ

[Jammrock]

I have 3D sonogram pics of my baby frowning and laughing/smiling at us

Jammrock

[J1NG]

Now I only wished mum largely went to places other than temples and fortune tellers back then...

J1NG

[Dr Mordrid]

Originally posted by Jammrock
I have 3D sonogram pics of my baby frowning and laughing/smiling at us

Jammrock

We have similar pics of our new grandson Kaden.

YES, they do smile in the womb and respond to external stimuli, and at much earlier dates than what the NARL would have you believe.

Dr. Mordrid

[Brian R.]

I didn't mean respond to extenal stimuli, I meant does a fetus respond to non-stimulated emotional states of the mother? Hearing music and responding to it is not the stimulus I had in mind.

For example, if a mother is happy, does the baby smile in response? or if the mother cries, does the baby feel sad?

[az]

Of course the baby is happier when the mother is happy, so if fetuses smile when they're happy (which seems perfectly plausible to me), I guess they'd smile more when the mother was happy.

BTW, why would you think otherwise? The mother and fetus share the same blood, so when the mother's endorphines go up, so do the fetus's.

AZ

[Nowhere]

They don't share blood...but of course various things come from mother's blood to fetus and vice versa.

On topic: I'd be much more surprised if fetus was basically a manikin which pops out and suddenly know how to smile and everything...

[Gurm]

They DO share the same blood supply, nowhere. It gets filtered precious LITTLE by the placenta. If Mommy gets HIV, baby gets HIV. If mommy is a crack addict, baby will be a crack addict. If Mommy spends quite a lot of her time basking in the afterglow of really hot second-trimester-hormone-induced sex (no, I speak NOT from personal experience *ahem*), the baby will be all blissed out on endorphins.

Now, while this is all well and good, and while fetuses really are quite amazing... let's NOT give too much ammunition to the "right-to-lifers" whom I almost got into a fistfight with a couple weeks back. My religious intolerance is running pretty high nowadays.

- Gurm

[Nowhere]

They share basically in some way plasma (using online translator from Polish term...not sure it's correct) and in every way what's dissolved in it, not much more...but blood is MUCH more than this two (think erythrocytes for example and what would happen to the baby and mother if they'd mix up in some cases; and viruses are particulkar example...pretty small, permeate easily)

edit: hmm...checked a little and the term is correct. Just little weird for somebody whom primary language has two completely different words for describing ionized gas and one of the main components of blood...

[isochar]

Originally posted by Gurm
They DO share the same blood supply, nowhere. It gets filtered precious LITTLE by the placenta. If Mommy gets HIV, baby gets HIV. If mommy is a crack addict, baby will be a crack addict. If Mommy spends quite a lot of her time basking in the afterglow of really hot second-trimester-hormone-induced sex (no, I speak NOT from personal experience *ahem*), the baby will be all blissed out on endorphins.

Now, while this is all well and good, and while fetuses really are quite amazing... let's NOT give too much ammunition to the "right-to-lifers" whom I almost got into a fistfight with a couple weeks back. My religious intolerance is running pretty high nowadays.

- Gurm

Not to get into a fist-fight with you, Gurm, but RTL doesn't equal religious. Vice versa *should* always be true... American culture seems to prove me otherwise though.

[az]

Gurm, sure, a couple cells is not a living organism, but fetuses are way more than what we thought of them way earlier than we thought.

AZ