What does the baby feel in the mother's womb? 2026

In Chinese culture, a person's age is counted differently than we do: on his first birthday a baby is not 12, but 21 months old, because the nine months spent in the womb are included. For the Chinese, prenatal development already belongs to life.

Our life calculation begins with birth, although for embryologists, gynecologists, psychologists and especially for future parents, the previous time is also considered vital. For most, there is no doubt that this tiny being whose heart is already beating with its own force four weeks after fertilization is something more than just a set of cells. And what's more, a twelve-week fetus already has tiny hands and its fingertips are equipped with a network of sensitive touch cells. And their facial features already have their own individual elements.

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When you look at premature babies, you understand that fetuses are already people: babies born in the 25th week of pregnancy lack protective panicles under the skin, as well as stable lung alveoli. When you look at his pale, touching face, you don't doubt for a moment that the little boy is capable of experiencing human feelings. They wrinkle their foreheads and moan when blood has to be drawn; They relax and even try to smile when they are allowed to lie on their mother's naked chest and feel their mother's heartbeat.

In the 12th week of pregnancy, particular facial features are already accentuated

Children who do not leave the mother's womb early have their senses just as awake as premature babies. Elútero is a protective space, but the fetus does not feel outside the world, but rather participates in its mother's life and feels the environment in which it will be born. Many pregnant women ask themselves questions over and over again, such as: Will the baby in my breast really feel everything that I experience? Will he feel my doubts, my worries and needs, my nervousness? What should I do to make it okay?

Modern science attempts to answer these questions. Here we present the most important results of the research.

The mother not only provides food for her baby, but her body also 'feeds' it with numerous information. The placenta transmits hormones and substances that cause sensations to the child. If the mother is, for example, stressed, cortisol levels increase. Research has been able to determine, through analysis of umbilical cord blood, that in just a few seconds the fetus also feels this increase in stress.

Fetuses react differently to stress: some become restless and their movements become nervous, while others become small and press their arms and legs against their bodies.

The fetus also participates in the positive feelings of its mother: endorphins and other happiness hormones flow to the future baby as soon as the mother relaxes, is happy or feels happy.

Embryologists discovered that the receptors for happy substances mature early and completely in the embryo's brain. Measurements of the brain current of the fetuses concluded that the deviations of the curves were smaller when the researchers asked the future mother, from the 20th week of pregnancy, to imagine a pleasant situation. The result: the baby also enjoys his mother's beautiful thoughts from the womb.

The sense of touch develops first: the skin reacts as early as the seventh week of pregnancy. The fetus can feel that it is surrounded by amniotic fluid, its body senses the rhythm of the mother's internal organs and sways with her heartbeat.

In the 25th week, the fetus's hearing is already mature and the future mother can feel it: when she starts the blender or knocks on the car door, the embryo shudders in the womb.

Fetuses can soon differentiate between “good” and “bad” sounds. The mother's messages of love reach her increasingly better: when she speaks to her little one in the womb, she calms down or shakes happily. Experts who have investigated the relationship between mothers and their future babies say that it is really close and have found that, when a mother was asked to lie down and talk to her child, he relaxed in the womb, reducing his heart rate and even showing his calmness in his facial features.

All researchers who studied the inner life of fetuses came to the conclusion that mother and child are connected from within, even when this communication path cannot be proven by biochemistry or ultrasound studies. The fetus perceives its mother's mental state and feels her thoughts.

In the good and harmonious phases of pregnancy, future mothers rejoice in their inner connection with the baby, while in the less pleasant moments this closeness can also make women uneasy, because they sense that they cannot keep the worries, which always exist, away from their baby.

All mothers want their baby to grow up in their womb as a happy being, but, unfortunately, the circumstances are not always optimal. Even a child that develops as desired can cause concern to the woman carrying it. Should the baby endure all that from the womb? Wouldn't it be better to suppress negative feelings and thoughts with all our strength? No, experts say. That is something that an expectant mother cannot demand of herself.

The fetus suffers when its mother does not do well. It hurts to imagine that, but the researchers' results are also comforting: the future baby immediately experiences strong sensations and its mood quickly returns to positive as soon as the mother is happy again. Furthermore, small phases of reconciliation with the fetus have a healing effect, because by putting an end to difficult moments, the baby feels that there is happiness and that he is in a position to achieve it with mom.

Other conclusions

•There is no relationship between the weight, head size and vitality of the baby and the mother's stress during pregnancy. The baby's health does not depend on it.

• Ambivalent feelings or difficult phases in the mother's life do not cause mental damage to the fetus: only extreme and long-lasting permanent stress affects the child's trust in the world. These babies tend to cry more frequently and for longer in the first moments after birth, or they are sleepier and quickly lose interest in their surroundings.

• There are protective mechanisms in the female body to protect the fetus from stress. In the second trimester of pregnancy, an enzyme develops in the placenta that deactivates to a certain degree cortisol, the stress hormone, in the blood and protects the fetus. The mechanism fails only when the stress lasts too long.

What characteristics does the child carry from the womb to the world?

Virtually all newborns have behavior models that enhance the feeling of protection as they experienced in the womb. For example, they crawl in the crib until they touch its walls, seeking the prenatal sensation they had in the womb when their head was surrounded by their mother's coxal (hip) bone.

Most children are born with a basic feeling: mom is warmth, closeness, protection, her love sustains me, even when the little one has experienced bumps in his mother's mood during the nine months of pregnancy. And newborns give their mothers wonderful proof of their trust: there is nothing they react to more strongly than mom's voice. Hearing it makes them happy.