Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!micomvax!micomz!softech From: softech@micomz.UUCP Newsgroups: net.misc Subject: Re: Rock Music & the Unborn Message-ID: <166@micomz.UUCP> Date: Tue, 14-Jun-83 00:03:58 EDT Article-I.D.: micomz.166 Posted: Tue Jun 14 00:03:58 1983 Date-Received: Tue, 14-Jun-83 16:24:56 EDT References: cornell.4587 Lines: 37 Unborn babies are ESPECIALLY sensitive to everything that happens around them: within the woman's body, and in her immediate surroundings. This sensitivity is due to the fact that development within the womb can be steered and altered by minute "doses" of things that would not affect a grown up, because the foetus is so small and grows so fast (his weight increase is fastest before birth). Smoking, drinking, caffeine and other toxins all affect the baby's development to a degree. Caffeine, for example will increase the foetus heartbeat by a factor that is 8 times that of the increase of the mother's heart. Booze has the same effect (a friend of mine has chronic pancreatitis because her mother drank regularly during pregnancy). Influences from the environment outside of the mother's body have been studied extensively by the science community (and NOT Scientology, god forbid). In the area of auditive influences, I refer you to the (brillant) works of Dr Alfred Tomatis, a french audiologist that has devoted his life to the study of the role of sounds, and good hearing, in human health. In his book "L'Oreille et la Vie" (Ear and Life) he reports cases of babies that had actually learned the fundamentals of foreign languages before being born, and many cases of babies born with hearing deficiencies due to exposure of the mother to loud working environments. There is also evidence that babies of mother musicians (especially cellists, because the instrument is held close to the stomach) develop melodic and harmonic faculties at a much earlier age than when the father is the musician and the mother is not. There is much argument that these differences can be attributed to genetic factors, but Tomatis's figures seem to indicate that the acoustic environment the mother is exposed to has significant influence on the foetus, especially between months 4-9 of gestation. Richard "Turn that volume DOWN" Blouin. PS. If you want to know is Rock affects YOUR ears, the rule is as follows: If your ears ring or buzz after exposure, then some damage has ALREADY occured. Damage is usually loss of sensitivity to higher frequencies (above 10KHz). Repeated exposure of this sort always results in PERMANENT damage.