Prenatal devices promise to ‘teach’ fetuses
Published 10:58 am Monday, October 5, 2009
WASHINGTON — For the first half of her pregnancy, Suzanne Ling played classical music for her unborn child whenever she drove her car. She had heard about “the Mozart effect” from a friend, who swore that classical music soothed her baby both pre- and post-delivery.
Around week 20, Ling discovered BabyPlus, an egg-shaped device that she wore around her growing abdomen. The device played 16 “audio lessons” of heartbeatlike tones and promised to teach a fetus to recognize patterns and differentiate sounds.
After baby Alexander was born, Ling was certain that he was especially engaged, aware and smart. She’s convinced that his exposure to the in utero “lessons” will help him avoid two conditions she fears: autism and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder. Alexander, her first child, is now 1½ years old.
“At four months, his pediatrician said, ‘I can tell you right away he’s not autistic,’” Ling recalls. “Those were her exact words, because he’s so engaged. His focus was remarkable for his age.”
BabyPlus is one of a small number of “prenatal learning systems” being marketed to expectant parents these days. With such names as Lullabelly, Bellysonic and FirstSounds, they offer up everything from soothing tones to foreign languages as they promise anxious parents a better, calmer baby. Yet even as some parents pay more than $100 for these devices, experts say there is no proof, no scientific studies, to support the claims.
“It probably won’t do any good, and it can in fact be harmful,” said Janet DiPietro, a developmental psychologist at Johns Hopkins University who has studied fetal development for 20 years. But, she added, many people “don’t understand that anyone can say anything they want on that label and it’s not vetted anyplace and those products are not FDA-regulated in any way.”
Measuring the effect of one of these devices is difficult. After all, how can you tell whether your baby would have turned out less smart or alert without a prenatal learning system? A recent study in the journal Child Development found that fetuses, starting at 30 weeks, can acclimate to sounds over time and that they develop memory at 34 weeks. But does that suggest that the learning proposed by BabyPlus and other devices can occur?
Dutch obstetrician-gynecologist Jan Nijhuis, who conducted the study, hesitates to make a correlation. “How could that be proven?” he wrote in an e-mail. “It is questionable why one would interfere with the natural environment of the fetus, who is busy enough.”
People agree on this much: Starting at 18 weeks, fetuses can listen to the mother’s heartbeat, voices and other noises of daily life. Makers of prenatal learning devices say that the period between 18 and 40 weeks is an opportunity to give soon-to-be-born babies a head start. (The BabyPlus slogan? “Your womb … the perfect classroom.”)
The devices could damage a baby’s hearing and disrupt its sleep, DiPietro said. “Fetuses are almost always asleep. Here, you are introducing a stimulus to them while they’re asleep. This is akin to taking your newborn, and when they’re asleep in a bassinet, blasting Mozart at them. That’s exactly what you’re doing with these devices.”
Lisa Jarrett, whose company sells BabyPlus, says the device is set to a safe, unadjustable volume 40 decibels quieter than the mother’s heartbeat. Jarrett’s own experience as a mother of seven and anecdotal evidence from other mothers have convinced her that prenatal learning occurs.
Developers of the strap-on Ritmo audio belt have the same conviction. The system was spawned in part by interest in the controversial “Mozart effect,” which was coined in 1993 after a University of Wisconsin psychologist published a study suggesting that college students performed better on parts of an IQ test after listening to classical music.
Ritmo allows expectant mothers to play music (or anything else) to their growing fetus. Retailing for $149, the elastic belt has a palm-size “controller hub” that plugs into four built-in speakers and an iPod or other MP3 player (not included). Mom can listen along through headphones.
Joan Loveland, an obstetrician-gynecologist with offices in the District, Maryland and Virginia, says one or two of her patients have inquired about prenatal education systems in the past few years, enough to inspire her to do some research.
“I tell patients it’s an intriguing idea but it’s hard to know what the overall benefits will be,” Loveland said. “I say we don’t have any evidence that it’s harmful or helpful, but it’s probably fine, if you want to spend that kind of money.”
