Babies have the ability to hear long before they are born. The fetus first responds to loud noises after 16 weeks gestation. Sensitivity to sound will continue to develop and improve, with responses to music and voices after 24 weeks gestation.1 At birth, newborns prefer their mother’s voice over the voices of other women. They also prefer listening to passages in their mother’s native language, and they spend more time listening to music that they have heard previously when they are given the choice.2 Additionally, infants pick out melodic patterns from their mother’s native language and may even imitate these patterns when they cry. In fact, researchers studied German and French babies two to five days after birth and found that German newborns produced cries with a falling melody contour, similar to the melodic contour that German speakers make when they utter a sentence. In contrast, French babies produced typically French-sounding cries with a rising intonation.3
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