Posted on 06/13/2018 11:37:10 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
CALGARY, June 12, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) – A pair of music researchers have invented a musical instrument designed to be played by a preborn child in the womb.
Aura Pon, a mother who holds a music technology PhD from the University of Calgary, has teamed up with Johnty Wang to invent the “world’s first prenatal musical instrument,” CTV News reports.
The device, dubbed the Womba, is strapped to a pregnant woman’s belly and creates music in response to the kicks and other movements of the baby growing inside her. Users can choose a variety of different sounds, and speakers enable both mother and child to hear the results. Its creators also hope to adapt the device for the baby to continue using after birth.
The device’s function and evolution can be seen in the following video:
CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE VIDEO
“I thought it would be kind of fun to have him make sound,” Pon said, explaining that she first got the idea while pregnant with her first child in 2013. “I'm always interested in different ways you can interact with sound and music.”
“The first version of the Womba was, essentially, just sensors taped to my belly which were set up to trigger sounds on a church organ. The location of certain kicks would set off certain chords,” she elaborated to the university’s news website UToday. “As far as being a bonding tool, I’ll tell you that it was pretty amazing to be able to hear my baby making these sounds. It was magical.”
Pon and Wang, whose own wife was pregnant as well, spent the next few years evolving the concept from a hobby into a serious project to take advantage of the “Mozart effect,” the developmental benefit believed to come with playing music for children during pregnancy.
“It's also about bonding,” Pon added, stressing that the Womba also serves as an innovative way to convey the personhood of the being in the womb. “Those that can't feel the kicks all the time, you know, they can now see it and hear it and start to be like, 'That's a person in there.'”
Pon and Wang have applied for a U.S. patent for the Womba, and say a company has already expressed interest in helping develop it.
And if they developed a device which allowed the baby to play baseball, they could call it a “Wombat”.
SNL used the name as a parody years ago...
bkmk
That’s pretty kewl! I would have loved to have that during my child bearing years! I’m
Love this!!!!!!!!!!!
That, of course; and understanding more about when cognition actually develops could revolutionize our understanding in many ways.
I wonder how peaceful it really is in there - or at least how quiet.
I think I’ve read that it’s believed by some that birds in the egg are already learning the songs/calls of their parents. I suspect that babies in the womb are picking up on and learning things, too.
(I have a pendant that chimes when it’s moved around - it’s supposed to originally have been a South American Indian thing that a pregnant woman would wear on a long chain. When it bounces around her belly, it makes sounds that supposedly the baby can hear and be soothed by. I think we’ve always suspected that babies in the womb have a certain level of awareness.)
What a great idea. Yes, watching the future results with great interest.
Went to the site - cool video.
Preborn? How about - Human Being?
No doubt.
My mom was a piano teacher. After I was born she said I would scrunch up my face when a student made a clinker. I was playing 2 hands, harmonizing, before I could walk or talk. My siblings also are musical. Babies do hear through the thin skin covering the womb area.
I’ve heard mothers are teaching languages before babies are born.
It’s all very cool. So many possibilities.
“I got 2 tickets to Iron Maiden, baby -
Come with me Friday, don’t say maybe”
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.