News in Brief Neuroscience

Re-creating womb sounds perks preemies’ attention

Study piped sounds of mothers’ voices, heartbeats into babies’ incubators

incubator

NOISES ON  Premature babies in incubators may benefit from recordings of their mothers’ voices and heartbeats, a new study suggests. 

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By Laura Sanders

- More than 2 years ago

WASHINGTON — Recordings of their mothers’ voices and heartbeats may help premature babies pay attention to speech, new research suggests.

Premature babies do better if their acoustical environment approximates what the babies would have heard in the womb, neuroscientist Amir Lahav said at a news conference February 13 at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.