THE ROUGH GUIDE TO PSYCHOLOGY2009 by Jan Nijhuis at Maastricht University involved placing a noisy,
vibrating device on the tummies of women between the 30th and 38th
week of their pregnancies. At first the foetuses squirmed and their heart
rates increased. Crucially, however, they barely responded when the
device was applied again ten minutes later – they’d evidently learned
that there was nothing to be afraid of. The 34-week and older foetuses
remembered the device was no threat even after a four-week gap.
Understandably, perhaps, a lot of foetal psychology research is
focused on ascertaining whether or not foetuses can feel pain. It’s a
tricky area, because while there are indicators of pain processing from
23 weeks – in terms of the maturation of pain-nerve pathways and
biochemical responses to needle punctures – there’s no way we can
know whether the foetus actually feels any pain. In 2010, however, the
Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists in the UK published
an authoritative report which concluded that foetuses of 24 weeks and
younger are unable to feel pain, because they are in a sleep-like state of
unconsciousness and their brains lack the necessary wiring between the
periphery of their bodies and the cortex.
An area of embryonic psychology that’s spilt over into the mainstream
has to do with so-called “prenatal education”. Given that by late preg-
nancy foetuses can hear and process sounds, it’s perhaps no wonder that
some companies have begun to make claims regarding the merits of
There is no evidence that pre-natal education has any benefits.