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1ST & WORLD LARGEST RIGHT BRAIN EDUCATION LIBRARY
Introduction
Congratulations and welcome to the Right Brain Prenatal Education Manual.
According to research, babies can learn new words or language in the womb. Whether you are teaching your baby or not, your baby will pick up new sounds and words from the environment.
In that case, why not teach your baby in the womb some new, useful, and positive words?
As a parent, we want our baby to be calm, not easily agitated, well behaved, and able to learn things fast.
In this manual, we will talk about prenatal education topics like the growth, development, and learning of the unborn baby (fetal brain development), the timeline of their development, how to stimulate your baby, and how to talk to the baby in the womb.
We will share with you how you can teach your baby in the womb and the importance of a good and healthy diet.
Use this prenatal education manual as a reference and your online or printable source of information and guide towards a happy, smooth, and comfortable pregnancy.
When you are happy, your child will be happy.
Happy Reading!
Yours truly,
Right Brain Education Library Team
PS. : Get your FREE library printable Prenatal Baby Flash Cards to teach your baby here.
Fetal Nervous System And Brain Development
When do you start reading to your baby in the womb?
Let's look at the development of the mental brain to understand when you can teach, talk, or read to your unborn baby.
Here is an interesting fact…
Do you know the fetus first starts their development from the brain and the spinal cord?
Before you are aware that you are pregnant, the fetus's brain development already started.
To get a better understanding of the fetus's brain development, let's look at the anatomy of the baby's brain.
Let's look at the anatomy of the baby's brain.
Anatomy Of Your Baby's Brain
5 different regions are responsible for the various functions of the brain.
1. Cerebrum: As the biggest part of the brain, it's responsible for remembering, thinking, and feeling. It is a section of the brain where the cerebral cortex and its various lobes reside.
2. Cerebellum: This area is in charge of motor control.
3. Brain Stem: this part helps to regulate your baby's heart rate, breathing, and blood pressure.
4. Pituitary Gland: It is a pea-sized gland that plays a major role in regulating vital body functions and general wellbeing. It is responsible for growth, metabolism, and more.
5. Hypothalamus: This area deals with body temperature, hunger, thirst, sleep, and emotions.
Let's look at the development of the fetus' nervous system and brain development.
First Trimester: Baby Starts To Move
At just 16 days after conception, your fetus's neural plate forms (the foundation of your baby's brain and spinal cord).
It will grow longer and turn into a tube - the neural tube.
All this takes place before a woman is aware that she is pregnant.
Once the neural tube closes, at around week 6 or week 7 of pregnancy, it curves and bulges into three sections (forebrain, midbrain, and hindbrain).
The spinal cord will begin to develop, and it is located at the rear of the hindbrain. At the same time, the five different regions of the brain begin to grow. They are the cerebrum, cerebellum, brain stem, pituitary gland, and hypothalamus.
While this is taking place, the special neural cells form and move throughout the embryo to form the beginnings of the nerves. Your baby's nervous system consists of millions upon millions of neurons. Each of these microscopic cells has tiny branches coming off of them so they can connect and communicate with each other.
With this comes, your baby's first synapses, which means the neurons can communicate and create early fetal movements. At around 8 weeks old, your baby can wiggle his developing limbs. At the same time, your baby is beginning to develop a sense of touch.
Second Trimester: Your Baby Sucks, Swallows, Blinks, and Dreams
By the 16th week, your baby starts to suck and swallows at around 16 weeks old. That means your baby is developing a sense of taste.
By the 18th week of pregnancy, you may feel your baby's first kick.
Towards the end of your baby's second trimester, the development of the brainstem (controls the heart rate, blood pressure, and breathing) almost entirely mature.
By now the nervous system has developed enough that your baby can be startled by sudden loud noises outside the womb. Your baby may even turn his head towards your voice.
In the 28th week, fetal brainwave activity features sleep cycles, including REM (rapid eye movement). This is a stage where dreaming occurs.
Third Trimester: Baby’s Brain Grows
This is the time where your baby's brain grows fast—the baby's brain triples in weight within the 13 weeks of gestation.
The brain grows from about 3.5 ounces to 10.6 ounces and does not have a smooth surface anymore. It begins to become grooved and indented (it looks more like a developed brain).
At the same time, the cerebellum (motor control) and cerebral cortex (thinking, remembering, and feeling) begin to develop rapidly.
Fetal Hearing Development
Your baby can hear what you say and the music you listen to. Here is the timeline of your baby's hearing development.
As your baby grows, more sounds will be audible to them. The most powerful sounds your baby hear is your voice. Your baby does recognize your voice.
Researchers Discovered That Your Baby Can Learn In The Womb
A 1998 study done by suggested that newborns recognize the theme song from their mother's favourite soap opera.
Here is what cognitive neuroscientist Eino Partanen of the University of Helsinki says,
"It may seem plausible that fetuses can listen to speech within the womb, but the sound-processing parts of their brain become active in the last trimester of pregnancy, and sound carries fairly well through the mother's abdomen. If you put your hand over your mouth and speak, that's very similar to the situation the fetus is in."
Also, more recent studies have expanded on the idea of fetal learning, indicating that newborns already familiarised themselves with sounds of their parent's native language, one showed that American newborns seem to perceive Swedish vowel sounds as unfamiliar, sucking on a high-tech pacifier to hear more of the new sounds. Swedish infants demonstrated the same response to English vowels.
But those studies were based on the babies' behaviours, which can be tricky to test. Partanen and his team decided instead to outfit babies with EEG sensors to look for neural traces of memories from the womb.
"Once we learn a sound, if it's repeated to us often enough, we form a memory of it, which is activated when we hear the sound again," he explains.
This memory speeds up the recognition of sounds in the learner's native language. It can be detected as a pattern of brain waves, even in a sleeping baby.
The team gave expectant women a recording to play several times a week during their last few months of pregnancy, which includes the made-up word, "tatata" repeated many times, and interspersed with music. Sometimes the middle syllable was varied, with a different pitch or vowel sound. By the time the
babies were born, they had heard the made-up word, on the average, more than 25,000 times. And when they were tested after birth, these infants' brains recognized the word and its variations. While infants in a control group did not, Partanen and colleagues report online today in the Proceeds of the National Academy of Sciences.
Babies who had heard the recordings showed the neural signal for recognizing vowel and pitch changes in the pseudoword and the signal was the strongest for the infants whose mothers played the recording most often. They were also better than the control babies at detecting other differences in the syllables, such as vowel length.
"This leads us to believe that the fetus can learn much more detailed information than we previously thought," Partanen says and that the memory traces are detectable after birth.
Patricia K. Kuhl, Professor of Speech and Hearing Sciences and a co-director of the Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences at the University of Washington concurs with the findings of Partanen and his colleagues and their research.
Combining with her previous work, she says, these results suggest "language learning begins in the womb."
Your Prenatal Education Goals
Some people have many opinions against practising "Prenatal Training". They believe parents that do prenatal training are selfish and self-centred who only want to raise their children to be more intelligent than other children even before birth.
"Prenatal Training" is about bonding and building a good relationship with her unborn baby. The most important thing in prenatal education is for a mother or a father to have heart-to-heart communication with their unborn baby.
Here are your goals you can set to achieve in your prenatal bonding:
Excellent right brain abilities like photographic memory, good visualization ability, heightened sensory perception, multiple language acquisition abilities, music ability, and healing ability.
Care for your unborn baby and believe that your baby will have these characteristics. It will have a smooth delivery as well.
How Do You Have A Heart-To-Heart Talk With Your Unborn Baby?
This is done by doing "Image Training" during pregnancy. Which is teaching words and sending images to your unborn child. Your baby is born smarter or intelligent and with right-brain abilities.
Image Training (using baby flash cards) During Pregnancy
1. To teach/read words and send images to your child, you need flash cards with realistic, colourful pictures in front and words behind. Then talk about the picture or image on the flash cards.
2. For example, you can talk to your unborn baby while looking at the picture of a strawberry. Look at the picture in detail and describe it slowly and clearly.
3. Here is how you can say, ”This is a strawberry, it is red in colour and it taste… “. Close your eyes and imagine a strawberry and mentally send the image to your unborn baby. This training is called “Image Training” and “Memory Training”. The subconscious mind thinks in pictures.
4. On the back of the flashcard is the word “strawberry”. You can say to your unborn baby, “This is a letter S. What word begins with the letter S? Yes, Is it a Strawberry?" Then imagine the words and send the image to your unborn baby. Words are images to your unborn baby.
5. Your environment is very important. As I said earlier, your environment is more powerful than your willpower. Set up a corner and make your "environment" very comfortable and relaxed. Once you are relaxed, you can start to do your image training.
6. Do your image training in the morning and at night. Practice this exercise 10 to 15 minutes every day.
7. Parents' mental state is very important because it has a big influence on the baby in the womb. The mother's mental feelings and thoughts are transmitted to the unborn baby in the womb. At the same, time Image training is a form of bonding with your unborn baby.
Communication With Your Unborn Baby
1. Introduction
Prenatal education is all about heart-to-heart communication between a mother and an unborn baby.
It is not about teaching an unborn baby to be intelligent. It is all about a mother's communication with her unborn baby.
It has been believed that unborn babies do not understand a word, and their senses are not functioning and are merely living without emotions.
It is also believed that a newborn baby does not possess intellectual ability, no memory, or thinking ability.
Their mental function is telepathic. Telepathy is the ability to resonate with other people. An unborn baby begins learning to relate to a mother when a mother relates to an unborn baby.
A One-month-old fetus has an ability to understand what his/her mother thinks and what his/her mother says. This is a function of a baby's (mental) heart.
A heart function beyond words. It is thought by people is impossible that a one-year-old fetus can understand. Then how can a fetus understand a mother?
It is how the heart functions. The heart functions through telepathy that does not require words. A fetus has a circuit that can receive information through telepathy, thus able to understand things. A fetus uses not only an information channel but also a certain channel to see images. If parents to talk to a fetus, he/she can even see their faces. People call this ESP, but this not a supernatural power. It is the natural five senses that any fetus has.
This is different from the five senses that we adults use. It is the innate five senses that start functioning in the right brain when a baby is born. The right brain starts working while the fetus is in the womb.
A fetus often dreams in the womb, It is not true that a fetus cannot see any picture in the darkness, provided that parents talk to a fetus. A fetus has innate right brain five senses such as sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell. They are different kinds of senses from the adults' left brain senses.
Remember that a fetus receives all the information when you convey your love, talk, and send images to him/her.
The right side of the brain functions best when the unborn baby is happy and relaxed.
2. Five Communication Circuits
There are five types of communication circuits that you can use to reach out to your unborn baby. They are physical nutrition, emotional, motion, and language communication circuits.
The physical communication circuit has something to do with the hormone. A mother's condition will affect the baby physically. If a mother feels insecure or if she worries all the time, it will affect the baby's growth.
Whatever the mother eats, it will go to the baby through the nutrition communication circuit. During this period, a mother should eat simple food, and it's important to drink good water (not coffee or soda drinks). As the unborn baby grows up in the amniotic fluid, the intake of chemical substances in our daily life will pollute the amniotic fluid.
Then, there's the emotional communication circuit. The mother and unborn baby communicate with the heart. You can send images by listening to music or look at beautiful paintings together. Put emphasis on images rather than words and focus on the positive elements.
As for the motion communication circuit, you can touch and tap your stomach gently. All these movements affect the unborn child. If the mother just lies around during the pregnancy, the baby will think that's it's great to be lazy. So do not blame the child if he/she is lazy in the future. You have to enjoy exercising with the baby, and you will notice that your movements will become graceful simply because you're doing it together.
The last is the language communication circuit. Talk to your baby the moment you know when you are pregnant. It's good to read picture books. Read the same book and sing the same song over and over for as long as you feel comfortable and enjoying it. Do not see it as a duty. The mother's circuit is linked to the fetus. Whatever the mother feels the fetus fell the same.
Talk to your baby frequently. For example; this is a chair, this is a table, can you hear the sound that the car makes?
Through this, you will draw out tremendous abilities from the baby. What you want to achieve is to teach your unborn baby to be curious and wanting to learn more.
Talk to your baby about your feelings and also others. This is very important for character building. Else; the baby will become very attached to the mother and will find it hard to make friends.
3. The Impact of Stress
The unborn baby cannot produce hormones due to stress. The secret of having an excellent baby is having a good positive outlook and the ability to manage stress. Stress affects the unborn baby's brain when a mother is going through stress.
Hundreds of studies have confirmed that chemicals released by the pregnant mother's body are transported into the womb and affected the unborn baby.
For example, the hormonal function gets affected when a mother is traumatized. It affects an unborn baby immediately. It affects the baby's hormones, and also unhealthy emotions are conveyed to an unborn baby.
When a mother goes through frequent stress, these are the qualities that a baby will have when she gives birth - small appetite, crying excessively, bad mood, easily gets diarrhoea, nutritionally poor, poor memory, and poor function of the hypothalamus which controls the independent nervous system. That's why having a positive mindset and ability to manage stress is important.
4. Results of Good Telepathic Communication
It is proven by numerous neuroscientist,
"Babies Can Learn To Recognize Words In The Womb."
As the fetus grows inside a mother's belly. It can hear sounds from the outside world-and can understand them and retain memories of them after birth.
According to cognitive neuroscientist Eino Partanen, a 1988 study suggests that newborns recognize the theme song from their mother's favourite soap opera. Most recent studies have expanded on the idea of fetal learning, indicating that newborn already familiarized themselves with sounds of their mother's native language.
This shows that it is important for a mother to talk to her fetus with love every day.
5. How To Talk To A Fetus
Extra Notes: When your baby is born, continue to talk to your baby. For example, telling where you are taking them. What we doing next
6. “5-minute Auto-Suggestion”
Auto-suggestion is affirmations or positive words used in repetition. It is said, “we become what we think”. With positive words used repetitively, your child will have positive thoughts.
Below are some words you can say to your unborn baby:
You are a genius, mommy and daddy loves youYou can hear your mommy and feel mommy's heartYour concentration is wonderfulYou are very happy and peaceful every dayIt is important to do your affirmation every day. Start by telling your baby in the womb that you love him/her very much in your own words. Proceed to teach something and after teaching, praise your baby that he/she did a good job even though he/she is still small. Praising is important to a fetus.
7. Examples of what to talk to a fetus
Here is a list of what you can talk to your baby:
1. Talk about mommy, daddy, and a baby.
Describe yourself about the colour of your hair and eyes, nose, ears, mouth, chin, head, neck, arms, had, foot as you look at yourself in the mirror. Tell him/her that he/she is growing bigger in mummy's womb, you are protecting him/her, you are eating good food for him/her, you love him/her, and you are going to hold him/her when he/she is born.
2. Talk about the meal, baby's room, and outing
How you prepare meals, the method of cooking, how to eat; and vitamins and minerals. As you are traveling, tell him/her about places such as the supermarket, clinic, cars, schools, restaurants, houses, and other places.
Prepare a baby room and tell him/her that this is his/her room, and it is decorated colourfully and where to put the toys and books. Describe in detail what is in the room, such as a crib, table for changing diapers, nursing chair, pillow, and closet.
3. Other topics to talk about
PS. : Get your FREE library printable Prenatal Baby Flash Cards to teach your baby here.
Brain Food For Fetal Brain Development (and also infants 0 to 3 years old)
"Health Mother, Healthy Baby"
The baby's brain development also depends on the mother's food intake. What the expecting mother consumes the fetus gets the nutrients. It is also very important for newborns that are being breastfed to receive the essential nutrients for their first 100 days of brain development because it strengthens the baby’s immune system.
Here is a VERY IMPORTANT list of brain nutrients to consume:
As for the mother, the two most beneficial omega-3s are EPA (eicosapentaenoic acid) and DHA (docosahexaenoic acid). EPA supports the heart, immune system, and inflammatory response. DHA supports the brain, eyes, and central nervous system for the expecting mother. A good source will be fish, seaweed/algae, spirulina, lecithin, walnuts, chia seed, olive oil, and broccoli. Do check your sources of fish because some fishes do have high mercury content.
Your healthy choice will be leafy vegetables like spinach and methi (fenugreek), dried fruits and nuts, and whole grains.
Food To Avoid
Do read the labels, and be aware of what you are eating. Here is a list of some of the substance to avoid:
1. Alcohol
2. Caffeine
3. White Sugar (refined sugar)
4. White Flour (food using white flour)
5. Junk food
6. Food Additives, Colourings, Flavourings and Preservatives
7. Processed Food and Meat
Do take note: When it comes to nutritional advice, do check with your physician on your allergies. Do seek advice on the right supplements to take during and after your pregnancy (like your folic acid and calcium). What we share based on our experience and studies. It is your decision and responsibility for selecting what is best for you and your baby.
Some Final Thoughts
Whether you want to teach your baby or not, your unborn baby is exposed to their environment. Why not give a positive, productive learning environment for your baby.
Take this wonderful time to do some positive activities like reading, some light exercises, meditation, relaxation, and doing things that make you happy.
Also, stay away or see less of negative people within your circle of friends or certain relatives.
Have fun, be happy, and stay positive.
Recommended Reading and Research
We always believe, if you want your baby or toddler to learn, it has to be fun. You will discover that babies are very fast learners. Discover:
Click the link, to download the Right Brain Education Manual.
Visit the RightBrainEducationLibrary.Com to discover the early learning materials you can use to teach your baby or toddler.