When the miracle happens to you, you are pregnant successfully of an embryo with potency of higher qualities of health and intelligence. But a new duty is just beginning – child education starts in the womb but not after born, and this modern concept is totally different from the traditional child education concept. Chapter 6 will offer you all of the information explained in details to assist you to help your fetal to develop to a healthy baby with intelligent qualities.



As a prospective mom, the most important information you need to keep in mind is that your behavior and emotion changes, including all of your living and working activities and experiences, will have impact on the development of your baby. And this starts on the very first day of your pregnancy. This is not kidding, but true. This chapter will give you more details of evidences and instructions.

In this case, what you do and what you take in to your body, will influent your baby. It is time for you to start thinking about both of you, but not just you yourself, from the first day that you realized you are under pregnancy. The way of thinking about two persons, instead of only one person, will really help you to prevent doing or taking in anything that may not be good for your baby. And is is the reason that this is so important and critical.

If you are following this idea – thinking about two instead of one – it will make everything simpler and easier. For instance, when you catch a cold or flu, you will not going to take any medication in hand, but thinking about only those cold recipes, or medications if necessary, which will not do any harm to your baby, very naturally. You will try to avoid smoking, drinking, junk foods, long party, instead you will enjoy outdoor activities in environments that are full of clean air, greenish plants and trees; gentle exercises with enough breathing to supply the baby with oxygen; and eating of nutritious and healthy foods with enough proteins, minerals and vitamins like suitable meats, fruits and vegetables.

For your convenience, a Pregnancy Calendar is as follows. You may use it to mark your pregnant week and month, and to get better understanding of the content of this Chapter with knowledgeable information.



Pregnancy period can be divided to three semesters, although there is no fixed rule or reason for the division, but the trimesters are helpful for describing the changes in your body taking place in your pregnancy. Each trimester contains about three months, and each month contains only four weeks that is specially used and defined only for pregnancy.

Traditionally, your obstetrician will tell you that a pregnancy lasts 10 months of 40 weeks totally, calculating from the first day of your last menstrual period as day 1 until the delivery. But you learn that, from Chapter 5, ovulation will not happen until about day 14 from the first day of menstrual period. And thus the actual length of time of pregnancy should be counted from the ovulation, and it will be more accurately as 9 ½ months of totally 38 weeks or 266 days, which will be used as standard pregnancy month count in this Chapter.

By learning this concept, it will make it easier for you to understand the reason that not all pregnant women deliver their baby at the end of 40 weeks as told by obstetricians. Simply because every woman’s ovulation day is different, and the length of days between the first day of menstrual period and the actual ovulation day will decide when the baby will want to get out of the mother’s body. And thus it is normal to see that some mothers delivered their babies before the end of 40 weeks, and others delivered after. And if you know your ovulation day, it is more accurate to use the way of calculation of this Chapter as 9 ½ months of totally 38 weeks, because this way will help you to know your delivery day more practically.

 

6.1 - First Weeks

When about 100 sperm cells finally reach the egg, they surround together around the egg to clear a path on its outer covering or called zona pellucid, to allow only one strongest and smartest sperm to penetrate and to go into the inner layer of the egg while losing its tail outside. As soon as the one lucky sperm goes in, the egg forms a layer immediately on its surface to prevent any further invasion of other sperm cells, and this is the main cause of one single baby per pregnancy in most of the cases.

The one Olympic pentathlon champion shares its genome DNA with the same DNA in the nucleus of the egg as the format of chromosomes, and chromosome DNAs from the two parents fuse together to form one nucleus of the fertilized egg or called zygote. Until this point, the selections of most of the basic genetic features, from eye color, hair color, health to intelligence, are all determined. Other factors in later life will modify and enhance these features, but will not be able to change the basic determination. The processes of the important first week are as follows.

Hour 0: Once fertilized, the egg becomes zygote, and moves towards the posterior wall of the uterus while performing self-dividing.

Day 1.5: The zygote completes its first cell division and becomes pre-embryo with two oocytes on its way to the uterus.

Day 2: From then on, each oocyte will divide once every 12 hours regularly.

Day 3: Until now, the original pre-embryo has been dividing for three times, and thus forms a 16-cell mass of morula, but still does not reach the uterus yet.

Day 5: The pre-embryo finally reaches the uterus and becomes a blastocyst with two layers of cells that form a hollow sphere and a cell cluster on one side. The outer layer of cells will form a placenta to support the embryo and to supply nutrition; while the inner layer cells will develop into the embryo.

Day 7: The pre-embryo implants locally into the lining wall of the uterus where it continues growing by division. When the implantation occurs, it is the sign of the completion of conception.

6.2 - Just Relax Mom—End of Shared Stress

All of your efforts now have been paid back, and it is time for you to forget about all of the stress shared between you and your partner, and to relax yourself to enjoy your first pregnancy experiences. Relaxation at this stage is important, not just for protecting the normal growth of your baby, but also for your own peaceful mind. As most of pregnant women will start pregnancy reaction or sickness in the first month or two, keeping a peaceful mind and taking enough nutrition may help you to reduce the reaction and to pass the first three months enjoyably.

There are many ways suitable for a prospective mom, such as more rest, eat well, appropriate exercises, community activities, preparation of birth and family life, and so on. You may choose some of these choices to enrich your newly pregnancy life, and give you yourself a good treat.

Taking some time off is a good idea for both of you and your baby. If you feel tired at work, find a place that you can take a small break and relax your feet and muscles of your back. If you feel sleepy at home, you may go to bed early today, because sleeping a little bit more is totally normal in the beginning of pregnancy.

Talking to your best friends and your partner is another good idea to reduce your pregnancy stress. You may simply talk about what is in your mind, and it does not matter if the topics are pregnancy related or not, it will help you to be more relaxed and prepared. It may also build up your own confidence when you are able to share your thought about yours and your baby’s futures.

Eating enough nutrition is especially important in the first month, particularly if you are expecting heavy pregnancy reactions. You may talk to your own mom about what she experienced during her first pregnancy, and you have 50% of chance to have similar reactions. Different and multiple nutrients will not only give your baby a boot, but also may reduce the possibilities of your pregnancy reactions.

Keeping your regular exercises in the first few months is very healthy and recommended, but avoiding vigorous or intensive exercises like long distance jogging or ball playing should be ideal for you. You also need some delivery related exercises to train your muscles specifically for the labor of delivery that will make it so much easier and less painful, because a professional exercise will also train you to be relaxed. You may consult your gym experts for further information of suitable exercises for you and your baby.

Preparing for birth and family life is a good idea, and you may consult your obstetrician about birth and labor knowledge and information. You can also sign up for special training classes if you want to learn what you need to do during delivery, and signing up a practical tour to the birth center will help you to get familiar to the exact environment that you will be in later and give the birth, which will definitely reduce your stress and enhance your confidence about delivery. For family life, you will need to prepare a special environment for the coming baby with clothing, bedding, feeding bottles and toys. You may also visit your friends with babies to learn some useful experiences, or talk with your mom for some instructive advices.

You may also start planning for your financial future since a newborn baby will consume more than just you and your partner. Depending on your life standard, baby consumable could be very affordable or extremely expressive. Preparing ahead financially will help you to figure it out, and will result in a peaceful mind and good confidence.

These activities will not only prepare yourself well for your pregnancy, but they will also help you to remove your attentions from stress, and get yourself used to pregnant life.

6.3 - I’ll Remember This, Mom and Dad

The memory of your baby as a fetal in the womb is called fetal memory that is important not just for forming the bonds between the baby and you and your partner, and also important for the development of brain, nerve system, and body. Fetal memory is considered important for fetal life in the womb, as well as baby life after birth. So keep in mind that what you think and what you do to you yourself and your baby during pregnancy will be memorized by your baby, and will have impact on fetal life and life after birth. If you are expecting a baby with high intelligence, it is time for you to work on it during pregnancy, especially during the last three months of pregnancy.

Gynecologic scientists found that the nerve and brain system starts its development as early as the third week of pregnancy. At the end of the third week, a structure called ectoderm starts its development as the origin of the central nervous system and memory in fetus. Evidences show that fetal memory exists as early as the first trimester, and clearly detectable brain memory have been found in 30 weeks old fetus.

The scientific reports about fetal memory are amazingly surprising. Some of the behaviors of fetal memory have been observed by direct ultrasound as early as week 20. One of the examples is a twin brother and sister, and they used to play a game of cheek to cheek on each side of a divided membrane of their mother’s womb; when they were one year old as babies, their favorite game remained to be touching each other and laughing on the opposite sides of a curtain.



Another famous observation is that a French mother played a child’s rhyme daily from week 33 to 37 of gestation, and then stopped. When it was near week 40, the fetus in the womb showed memory to the specific rhyme, but not other rhyme with similar sounds that had not been heard.

You may take these advantages to perform your fetal education, and by doing that, you may modify your baby’s future life successfully. For example, if you think certain type of music is important for your baby, you may choose to play them near the surface of your abdominal wall. But be sure that the volume needs to be adjusted as suitable level as possible. You will immediately find that gentle music will calm your baby down, and lauder music will make your baby very excited.

If you hope your baby is a multi-languages expert, you definitely need to speak more than one language while pregnant, because babies learn their native language before birth. They learn the first lesson of language in the womb, and this is confirmed by the fact that those babies of deaf mothers missed the first lessons of language developments. The hearing capability is developed as early as week 16, and the voice of mother passes through the body and reach the baby with the best qualities and little distortion. The cry of a fetus in the womb reflects the language rhythms and characteristics from the mother by week 27. Additional evidence shows that, after birth, French babies tend to look at French speaking people, and Russian babies tend to look at Russian speaking people, is that interesting?

6.4 - Bonding for Life—From Me to We

Now you are no longer alone by yourself, one part of you and your partner becomes a live individual that will accompany you forever. Bonding is forming since the first few months of gestation, and it will develop to deeper extension when the time passing by. Scientists are still trying to find out more secrets about bonding, but at least we know that bonding means love, affection, and protection.

There is no schedule or time point that when bonding is going to happen, and you may think that it will happen more obviously after your baby’s birth, and it is true. But your baby definitely feels the bond between you two while living in the womb, and you may be less sensitive than your baby at this time point. What you may try to do is to find out the bond and reaction from your baby to you, and try to sense and understand it well.

Bonding can be one part of the intelligence development of your baby, because your cares about your baby, your gentle toughing through the abdominal wall, your singing and laughing, and your education attempts, all of these will affect your baby’s social capability and brain intelligence developments. Your intimate relationship with your baby will transfer senses of security and self-esteem.

These are all required for the development of a healthy and intelligent child. Remember every one of your smile and joy will be transferred to your baby and becomes important parts of life.

6.5 - Magical Music—Rhythms of Life

The magic of music on fetus has been attracting scientists very recently. Researchers at the University of California in Irvine found that Mozart can have effects on spatial and math intelligence of children, and other reports show that Mozart can also raise students’ and children’s IQs. Even though there is no direct evidence that shows the exact impact of classical music on fetuses, simply because the impact is too difficult to be detected. But plenty of indirect evidences have shown that music is important for brain development, and thus is important for having a high IQ baby as the rhythms of life.

In the old age, mothers used to sing lullabies to their babies during pregnancy, but the tradition has been lost for a while now. A research shows that fetuses became calmed when they were exposed to lullabies in their uteri. Music with different melody and rhythms can change heart beats and other reactions from fetus, and these have been confirmed by scientific studies. Yehudi Menuhin, as a famous British violinist, says that his music talent came partially from the history that his parents sang songs and played music when he was in the uterus.

When a fetus is living in the womb, the sounds there are incredibly rich and full of different noises from organs of the mother, and your baby totally gets used to these noises. The voice from the mother appears to be very clear and distinct compared to any other noises, and it is so unique that your baby will be attracted exclusively, and will give special attentions. This feature offers you a very good chance to use your own voice to help your baby to develop IQ intelligence. You may sing songs, read poems, and say your own soft words to your baby, and you should expect that these voices will go deeply to the brain and assist the central nervous system to be matured in a perfect environment.



You don’t have to put ear-plugs with surround sounds closer to your baby, because it will be a high risk with too high a volume (it is not easy to decide how much volume is considered “too high” for a fetus currently) of music directly on your baby. But simply listening to any music you like in a normal way will be good enough, and your baby will be able to hear it, and feel its effects from your reactions. And when you are relaxed, your baby will be relax too, obviously. You may also pay attention to the reactions from your baby, and try to play those pieces of music with better baby reactions.

6.6 - Months 1-3—Enriching Mom

An embryo is still tiny, and smaller than ¼ inch that is floating in a sac inside the fluid of the womb. Even though it is very small, its living system like nerve, circulation, and digestion systems are developing to generate its brain, eyes, ears and other organs, as well as the origins of arms and legs. The embryo also has its umbilical cord connecting to the placenta to receive oxygen and nutrition in blood from the mother, in order to keep up with its needs of fast growth.

Besides receiving, the embryo also sends feedback to the mother to help its own development. For instance, it can send hormones to the ovaries of the mother to maintain the internal nutritious environment in the womb, and also to prevent menstrual period. These feedback signals will help the environment of embryo more stable and beneficial for further growth and development.

When it is month 2, an embryo now is called a fetus as 1.25 inches, because most of organs are forming like ears, mouth, and so on. In addition, its arms and legs with fingers and toes are also forming.

At month 3, the 3 inches fetus finishes the formations of the ears and the eyelids. It can open and close its month, and can also suck its own thumb because the fingers and toes are perfectly formed. The fetus can move its arms and legs, and its heartbeat can be heard and its external genitals are also formed. Your pregnancy related reaction or sickness will be disappearing in this month.

6.7 - Month Four—Strengthening the Bond

At the beginning of month 4, week 13, it marks the end of the first trimester, because all internal and external structures are formed including organs, limbs and face. And week 14 is the beginning of the second trimester.

Your belly may be visible depending on your body mass and the size of your fetus, and you should be proud of your pregnant looking as a prospective mom. You may want to choose loose underwear and outerwear to allow more spaces for your body development to welcome the new forming baby, because tighter clothing may make you feel uncomfortable and may limit the changes to your body.

Since the external organs are formed, and bones and muscles are developing, the sex of the fetus may be determined by a sonogram, but it is not guaranteed because the result could be mistaken. More sonogram or ultrasound can be harmful to your fetus, and thus the sex identification result will be an approximate one.

In month 5, your fetus baby will be 10 inched in size with hairs growing on the head and also the body with skin growing that will fantastically improve hair and skin conditions in your body as well. You may start feeling the moving and kicking from your baby.

Now that your fetus looks like a real baby, your sonogram tells you of the approximate sex, and you start feeling the moves and kicks. These features will strengthen the bond between you, your partner and your fetus baby. And this bond is important for the IQ intelligence developments, because what you feel and what you do to your fetus baby will have impact to its brain and nervous system growths.

Your baby now can recognize your voice. You may continue any of your plans of music playing, literature reading, and pregnancy special exercises. You may sing and dance along with your partner, and it will raise the attention from your baby to music and the movement of dance to have the feeling that you three are one body.

If you did not start your exercise plan, now it is a good time for receiving training and start pregnancy and delivery related exercises. The pregnancy related exercises will help you and your fetus baby to grow together in a more healthy and strong way. Importantly, the delivery special exercises will help you to strengthen those muscles required for delivery, and will also train you how to use the muscles but still remain relaxed.

6.8 - Month Six—Boogie Baby, Boogie!

Your fetus baby is now 13 inches in size, and one and a half pounds in weight, and it is growing really rapidly. The baby will try to do breathe practicing by inhaling the fluid surrounding it into its lungs, and will grasp the umbilical cord whenever the hand is touching it.

You may continue the learning lessons to enhance your baby’s understanding capabilities, and your rhythms may be followed obviously. For instance, you may feel that when you play quiet music your baby will be calm and move less, but will be excited and move faster when fast-beat music is played. It is a good idea to choose a child song especially for your baby in this month. You will continue to sing the same song until your baby is born, and it will become a favorite song that will build up the memory of the happy time in the womb. The best time to do these is 8 ~ 11 pm in the evening.

If you really want your baby to be sensitive to music, you may start a drum game in this month because rhythms with lower sounds like bass and baritone will be heard easily by fetus of this month. A smaller log drum of $30 with double head will fit to this purpose, and dad can hold the drum closer to your belly. You may start with slow and simple rhythms with longer pauses in between from the beginning, and then increase it to rich and complex rhythm gradually and slowly. The drum game should last about one minutes each time and 2 ~ 3 times per week, and you may play it through the whole pregnancy. The best time to play any game with your baby is half an hour to 2 hours after your meal because this is the energetic and awake time for the baby.

You can even design a dream with your baby, just think about what you want to dream of that night 30 minutes before your time to sleep, and then fall asleep right away without doing anything else. The same thing will be probably repeated in your dream while you are sleeping. If you write your dream down, it will be an excellent memory to talk about when your baby fully grows up later.

6.9 - Month Seven—A Pleasing Personality

The first week of this month, the week 25 is the end of the second trimester. The second week of this month, week 26 is the beginning of the third trimester. Your fetus baby is 14 and ½ inches now, and the brain is developing rapidly in this month. This means that you are having a good chance to give your baby more IQ related learning lessons and activities. In case of premature birth in this month, your baby should have a good chance to survive. So you should be relaxed and worry-free.

You may start playing the famous kick game from the month Six, two to three times per day, and continue each month. It is simple, just wait until your baby kicks, pat or press gently on your abdomen where the first kick happens, and say “kick, kick.” Your baby will kick back. When both of you get used to it, you may change the location a few inches from the first place in a circle. Whenever your baby does not kick, you may go back to the previous location to remind the kick. You can also modify the words you say to add in more words with meanings. In a few months, you may also pat at a longer distance or in a little bit complex shape other than always in a circle. This and other games you play with your baby will be really helpful for intelligence growth.

Mom, you don’t need to worry if your baby does not like the kick game, and each baby is different, some of them will like sports, and others will prefer reading. If so, you may do other things that are more welcome. Whenever you can feel the moves from your baby, it means everything is fine.

In this month, you can start trying to teach your baby words from one or more languages. You make an action, and then say the word related to the action you make, each word with its action should be repeated at least 5 ~ 10 times until the word is familiar with. For instance, you pat your belly and say “pat,” or you rub it and say “rub.” Any word had better to be action or sound related to make it understandable by the baby. Other wards can be introduced including squeeze, shake, music, quiet, loud, cough, sneeze, hiccup and cry.

6.10 - Month Eight—Alert and Alive

Your fetus baby is now 16 inches in size, and getting fatty tissue under the skin that will protect your baby from temperature changes well and supply extra source of energy. The week 30 in this month is the fastest growing week than ever. You may Page 85 feel a little bit breathless because of the bigger size of your baby, but if you continue doing pregnancy related exercises, you may not feel any differences in this month, because your muscles become stronger and your body is ready to be loaded with the growing size of the body.

Your baby normally will invert its position by itself, and point its head towards your cervix. This is an important step preparing for your delivery, because with the head pointing the cervix, it has the right position for the natural head-out-first delivery procedure that is the safest and easiest delivery way. Your obstetrician should check it for you when the time comes, and if your baby does not invert by itself, it could be done by your obstetrician.

You may still do dancing with your partner, but it has to been a slower one, since you should not move faster after the month seven. A new game you can start is to teach your baby of numbers, you may pat your belly gently once, and then say “one,” then twice and say “two,” and so on. This simple game will be the very initial experience of your baby to have the sense of numbers, and it will help the brain to develop the concept of numbers a lot earlier than usual.

You can start a small conversation with your baby to tighten the bond between you three, and you may talk about what happen between you and dad, or something happen at work that day. You may explain the negative and positive points that you have about what happens, and your thought and learning from the events.

6.11 - Month Nine - It is lightening!

Your fetus baby is 18 inches now, and looks very close to mature, since all of its body parts are almost fully developed, and your baby is preparing itself to get out of your body when the time comes.

Week 35 is an important week for those pregnant women with their first pregnancy. If this is the case of you, you may expect that besides inversion, the head of your fetus baby will descend into your pelvis and is right behind the pubic bone. Since the baby’s body shifts down, the pressure in your abdomen will be reduced and thus your diaphragm will be lower down that will help you to breathe and to digest easier that you will feel lightened, hence the name “lightening,” and it is also called dropping. In the meantime, you may feel more frequency of urinating, and sensitive feeling in the pelvic that is because now the pressure is transferred from the abdomen to the pelvis, and it is totally normal. You will get used to it. But if it is not the first pregnancy, you may not have lightening at this moment, but you will have it when labor comes.

It is an important month for music learning. You may use any music instrument that you already have, but if not, an inexpensive guitar will be good for this learning, and piano is one of the best instruments for this music game. Mom and Dad can say the note first, and then play it. You say the note “C” and then play C on your instrument, and then do it the same to D, E, F, G, A and B. The total time can be one minute, and you can play this game before or after other games like drum game and kick game. Remember that baby’s attention will shift quickly, and if you want to attract the attention, you need to also shift your game quickly.

6.12 - Month Ten—Let Me Outta Here!

Your fetus baby is 20 inches in sized and fully grown. If you count the pregnant month as the traditional way, your baby delivery will be around week 40. But if you count it from your ovulation day, the delivery day will be week 38, month 9 ½ and day 366th. If you did not go visit your birth center, now it is time to go and get familiar with people and environment there. You may also decide who will be in the delivery room with you during the labor hours, and if you need assistant attendants who are available to be hired and give you instructions of delivery. You also need to check if you have everything ready for your baby when it is ready for both of you to come home, like feeding bottles, clothing, beddings and toys.

For IQ training lesson, you may do the word game with previous words and upgraded word list like “dry, wet, kiss, love, you, me, talk, sleep, and so on. You can also play this game with shorter sentences like “I love you,” “I am drinking water,” “I am dancing,” and others. These games will continue to stimulate the brain and body development of your baby, and to prepare the baby for the world outside of the womb.

You can also combine the delivery exercises with the position for delivery, and get used to the situation. This will help you to make up your confidence of labor and to be relaxed and comfortable.

Summary ● Fetus memory and education is hot today. ● It is practical and functional to enhance the IQ intelligence when your baby is still in the womb. ● You don’t have to put ear-plugs with surround sounds closer to your baby, because it will be a high risk with too high a volume (it is not easy to decide how much volume is considered “too high” for a fetus currently) of music directly on your baby. ● It offers you schedules and instructions about what you need to know and do for yourself, and what you need to know and practice with your fetus baby. ● The steps by step monthly instructions will assist you to be ready as a mom, and help you to enhance the healthy intelligence of your baby. ● You can start a small conversation with your baby to tighten the bond between you three, and you may.