Study finds that babies not only hear music in the womb, they recognize those same tunes after they are born.

At WavHello, we believe in the positive influence of music on our littles. In 2009, co-founder Curtis Williams invented our first product, BellyBuds, as a way of bonding with his first daughter in utero. These specially designed baby bump speakers gently adhere to mom’s tummy and safely play music to baby in the womb!

Since the release of this product, many parents have told us that the prenatal music they played for their baby in utero still soothes them after they are born. Check out our interview with real mom Michele who used BellyBuds during her pregnancy meditation sessions and now their son, nicknamed “chill bill”, is still soothed by those calming tunes today.

But you don’t have to take our word for it. This article, originally posted on nytimes.com, discusses an exciting study conducted by Finnish researchers that suggests that babies in the womb can not only hear melodies, they also recognize them after they’re born.

For the study, published online by PLOS One, Finnish researchers divided 24 pregnant women into two groups. Five times a week, the “learning group” played a CD that included a one-minute rendition of “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star,” which the unborn children heard an average of 170 times before birth. The control group did not hear the recording.

Then the scientists did EEG tests on the children at birth and again at 4 months as they listened to the original tune and a version in which several notes were altered.

The learning group had a larger response to the melody than the control group did, and the difference was still apparent at 4 months. And the amplitude of response to the changed melody correlated with the number of times the infants were exposed to the original melody in utero.

The lead author, Eino Partanen, a researcher at the University of Helsinki, urged parents not to make too much of the finding. “A baby can be relaxed and soothed by melodies it hears before birth,” he said. “But there is no evidence that it will get your baby into Harvard.”

To learn more about BellyBuds and even purchase a pair for a music loving mom-to-be, visit wavhello.com/bellybuds.