Look Who's Listening Too

By EMILY MITCHELL

Sometimes new parents can't wait to give their children a head start in life. They begin before the baby is even born. In hopes that sounds will somehow influence the fetus in their womb, zealous moms-to-be have attended classical concerts or kept tunes playing constantly at home. Now there is an updated, high-tech version of that technique: a contraption that delivers complex sonic patterns to unborn children, to excite the fetal nervous system and exercise the baby's brain.

The essence of the $250 system is simple: a belt, with two speakers in a pouch, to be fastened around the mother's abdomen. A series of 16 audiotapes, dubbed the "cardiac curriculum," plays an increasingly complicated pattern of heartbeat-like sounds (one mother describes them as African drumbeats) to the unborn infant.

Some users swear by the tapes. Melissa Farrell of Lake Wallenpaupack, Pa., had always thought that reading aloud would affect the unborn. When she became pregnant, the electronic fetal-improvement system seemed a good way to give daughter Muryah Elizabeth "as much of an opportunity as possible and see if it would stimulate her thought process." Though only 21 months old, Muryah plays with toys designed for youngsters twice her age, Farrell says. In Kirkland, Wash., Lisa Altig is using the tapes for a third time. Her two children, Natalie, 3, and Richie, 18 months, were relaxed babies who now "seem to pick up on things fast," says their mom. "They have an energy for learning."

The baby tapes are the creation of Seattle developmental psychologist Brent Logan, founder of Prelearning, Inc., a prenatal-education research institute. "This is not a yuppie toy," says its inventor. "We have barely literate families who are using the tapes." To date, 1,200 children -- the oldest of whom is now four -- have "listened" to the recordings. Last year 50 of the youngsters, ranging in age from six months to 34 months, were given standardized language, social and motor-skills tests. Their overall score was 25% above the national norm.

Many medical experts, however, remain skeptical. Dr. Thomas Easterling, who teaches obstetrics at the University of Washington, believes the idea of fetal improvement is possible but doubts Logan's claims for his belt. Parents who try the tapes, says Dr. Kathryn Clark, a San Francisco obstetrician and mother of a one-year-old, are "highly motivated people who would have been doing some kind of nurturing anyway." Also, she points out, prenatals do respond to sound and become restless, but "we don't necessarily know that they like it. They might want to get away from it."

Although ultrasound tests are used almost routinely on fetuses, Dr. Curt Bennett, professor of pediatrics at the University of Washington, says there is a possibility that the baby tapes could be harmful. "Sound waves that are too intense might have fetal consequences," he says. The better-baby belt, he adds, "is an intervention after all, and it does have the potential to be risky."

Early next year, Engenerics, a research company in Snohomish, Wash., will begin to market a smaller sonic-stimulation device for the baby-in-waiting. Logan has more prenatal improvement products in the works -- as yet undisclosed -- as well as some postnatal items for the sonic-belt kids. He predicts that one day pregnant women will be wearing devices that offer an even more sophisticated curriculum. What next? Violin lessons for the unborn?

With reporting by D. Blake Hallanan/San Francisco