Apparently it’s not enough to inundate babies with “educational” toys soon after they’re brought out into the world. Now, fetuses are being forced to listen to foreign language recordings and classical music in the womb, all under the pretense of making the child smarter.
The Washington Post reports on the array of devices being sold that claim to teach babies before they’re even born. One company’s slogan: “Your womb … the perfect classroom.”
Sad.
Here are some details about these products from the article, including the key tidbit that these devices not only don’t help children out, they may do harm:
BabyPlus is one of a small number of “prenatal learning systems” being marketed to expectant parents these days. With such names as Lullabelly, Bellysonic and FirstSounds, they offer up everything from soothing tones to foreign languages as they promise anxious parents a better, calmer baby. Yet even as some parents pay upward of $100 for these devices, experts say there is no proof, no scientific studies, to support the claims.
“It probably won’t do any good, and it can in fact be harmful,” says Janet DiPietro, a developmental psychologist at Johns Hopkins University who has studied fetal development for 20 years. But, she added, many people “don’t understand that anyone can say anything they want on that label and it’s not vetted anyplace and those products are not FDA-regulated in any way.”
Put these devices alongside the wipe warmer and the pee-pee teepee in the growing list of Useless Baby Products.