MYTH BUSTER
Babies can only hear you in the womb if you talk to this body part – and it’s NOT your bump
Fertility experts say we may have been talking to our unborn babies all wrong
IT'S something all parents-to-be will do - talk to their unborn baby in the womb.
It helps a baby's development but a team of experts believe we've been doing it all wrong!
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Rather than whispering (or speaking) sweet nothings to your little one through mum's bump, they suggest the best way to communicate with your baby in the womb is to take an altogether different approach.
If you really want your baby to hear a word you're saying, you're going to have to speak to mum's vagina.
Yep, you read right! Legs akimbo and holla up there.
The fertility experts have developed a special tampon-sized loudspeaker that mums-to-be can pop in their vaginas to help their little ones hear the outside world.
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The device, which is called Babypod, allows an unborn baby to listen to music in the womb.
Dr Marisa López-Teijón, from the Institut Marquès, which has centres in Barcelona and London, said: "We have shown that foetuses can hear from 16th week onwards when they measure 11cm.
"But only if the sound reaches them directly from the vagina.
"Foetuses can barely hear the noise from outside.
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"So we can say the myth of talking to babies through pregnant women's bellies is a thing of the past."
Hearing is the first sense an embyro develops in the womb.
While the NHS states an unborn baby can begin to hear at 15 weeks, Dr López-Teijón and her team suggest hearing develops a week later, at 16 weeks.
At 16 weeks their studies show an unborn baby will react to different sounds.
Many are things going on inside, mum, like her heartbeat, breathing and her voice.
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But when it comes to sounds from the outside world, they are barely audible, with a foetus only hearing muffled rumblings.
And those sounds are really common so a baby will get used to them very quickly, often sleeping through.
Dr López-Teijón said babies can hear clearly at 16 weeks, but only through the vagina.
And by placing a speaker like Babypod in there, they can hear music and other sounds like we do, research has shown.
Dr Álex García Faura, who works at the fertility centre, added: "By inserting a loudspeaker into the vagina of thousands of patients, for the first time we have managed to communicate with the foetus.
MORE ON PREGNANCY AND CHILDBIRTH
"This small device, Babypod, connects to the mobile phone and has allowed us to discover that the foetus responds in the same way as a baby, with speech and movement.
"The baby is learning to communicate.
"Thousands of women are already using it to communicate with their babies during pregnancy."
Music helps stimulate important parts of a child's brain, so starting earlier, while a baby is in the womb can be beneficial, the scientists suggest.
Dr López-Teijón presented her team's findings along with Dr Faura at the Karolinska Institut at the University of Stockholm this week.
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