Movies watched by mum-to-be affect unborn baby

Scientists have found that unborn babies respond in different ways, depending on whether their mum-to-be is watching a happy or sad movie scene

An unborn baby responds to a mum-to-be’s mood while she’s watching a film, scientists have discovered.

In the experiment, when pregnant women watched a 5-minute feel-good film clip from The Sound of Music, their unborn babies moved their arms about. During a 5-minute sad scene from another movie, The Champ, the babies became quiet. The pregnant women listened to the film through headphones, so their unborn babies were unable to be affected by the movies’ soundtrack, reports the Daily Mail.

It’s not certain as to how unborn babies detect their mums’ emotions, but the researchers think that it could be because the surge of hormones triggered by an emotional movie are indirectly passed on to them in the womb.

The study, undertaken at Japan’s Nagasaki University, involved 24 mums-to-be and has been reported in New Scientist magazine.