Amamzing facts about the unborn baby

Through a wide variety of methods, including scanning with ultrasound (which enables us to look inside the womb), scientists have been able to find out startling and amazing facts about the unborn.

The developing baby in the womb will respond to a touch from seven weeks after conception. He will respond even to the light stroke of a hair. Long before the baby has developed his sense of hearing, the vibration of many sounds will be felt.

From about fourteen weeks, baby can taste and will swallow furiously if a sweet substance is injected into the amniotic fluid or cease swallowing if sour fluid is introduced.

All mechanisms for smelling are fully developed in utero, so that the newborn has perfect ability to smell. Having suckled from the mother's breast, the baby will smell a sample of the mother's milk on a pad and, through his behaviour, will select this pad rather than one with the milk of another woman.

Babies develop hearing ability over a period of time, (not suddenly, as if turning on a switch,) possibly from as early as eighteen weeks. The auditory nerve is functional from eleven weeks and the most intricate parts of the sensory cells in the ear are fully developed by twenty-four weeks. In very premature babies (even as young as twenty-five weeks), brain scans have revealed that their brains showed increased activity in response to sound.