Babypod introduces a new way to make foetuses listen to music

Excessive use of earphones damages the auditory organ. However, if the audience for the music is a foetus, makers of Babypod have developed a method for the unborn baby to listen to sounds minus in the most direct way possible.

And that is through a speaker which is inserted through the vagina, reports The Guardian. The Babypod is better than prenatal speakers available in the market which are fitted around a pregnant woman’s tummy because abdominal wall muffles sound, explains the Spanish firm behind the product.

It adds that by direct auditory stimulation, babies would learn to speak as a response to a sound stimuli, particularly melodic sound. Using Babypod gives the foetus inside his or her first vocalisation lessons ahead of the birth.

Because the uterus – which is inside the woman’s body – is protected by multiple layers of soft tissue, using prenatal speakers “attenuate the intensity of sound and distort it in its journey to the uterus.” The company compares it to listening to a conversation next-door and failing to catch all the words uttered.

Placing the speaker inside the vagina delivers unparalleled crispness in sound by overcoming the barrier formed by the abdominal wall, allowing the foetus to hear sounds “with almost as much intensity and clarity as when emitted,” reports Consequenceofsound.net.

By exposing the baby inside the womb to sounds helps the normal connections that have to be formed in the brain, explains Dr Deborah Campbell, director of neonatology at The Children’s Hospital a Montefiore. She cites research that says the final stages of pregnancy are the times when the unborn babies listen and learn a bit, adding “their brains do not wait for the birth to start absorbing information.”

Babypod costs €150 (AUD$225) and is controlled by a phone app. The mother could listen as well to the music her baby is hearing through a split headphone that hangs out of her genital. With a maximum sound of 54 decibels, the manufacturer recommends the use of Babypod beginning the 16^th week of pregnancy and to play only 10 to 20 minutes at a time.

The device was introduced to the public in December when Soraya Arnelas sang Christmas carols to 10 pregnant women with the Babypod. Arnelas finished 23^rd at the 2009 Eurovision contest, and the device’s launch was billed as the “first concert for foetuses ever held in the world.”

The maker assures pregnant women that vibrations that Babypod create have no adverse effect on the foetus which explains why sex toys are not banned during pregnancy.