What is a fetus able to see, hear and taste in the womb?
The sensory world inside the womb is fascinating, and I devote a whole chapter of Birth Day (“Inside Looking Out: The Five Senses at Birth”) to the subject. The five senses are fairly well-developed by the third trimester. Hearing is the most advanced; a fetus can hear low-pitched sounds as early as six months into the pregnancy. Fetuses can hear music and conversation going on outside the womb, and researchers have shown that fetuses develop preferences: for a mother’s voice, for the stories she reads aloud, for familiar music. There’s not much to see in the womb, but it isn’t always dark in there. If a woman exposes her pregnant tummy to sunlight, a small amount of light reaches the fetus—just enough to give the interior of the womb a dim, red, Martian-sunrise look. And contrary to what a lot of people believe, newborns can see at birth, though they’re very near-sighted—they can see objects and faces clearly when they’re 8 to 12 inches away. A fetus smells and tastes everything its m
