Posted on 01/13/2011 9:12:48 AM PST by markomalley
Every mother knows that newborns are social creatures just hours after birth. They prefer to look at faces over objects, and they even imitate facial expressions. Now a study suggests that the propensity for social interactions exists in the womb. Twins begin interacting as early as the 14th week of gestation.
Researchers at the University of Turin and the University of Parma in Italy used ultrasonography, a technique for imaging internal body structures, to track the motion of five pairs of twin fetuses in daily 20-minute sessions. As published in the October PLoS ONE, the scientists found that fetuses begin reaching toward their neighbors by the 14th week of gestation. Over the following weeks they reduced the number of movements toward themselves and instead reached more frequently toward their counterparts. By the 18th week they spent more time contacting their partners than themselves or the walls of the uterus. Almost 30 percent of their movements were directed toward their prenatal companions. These movements, such as stroking the head or back, lasted longer and were more accurate than self-directed actions, such as touching their own eyes or mouth.
The results suggest that twin fetuses are aware of their counterparts in the womb, that they prefer to interact with them, and that they respond to them in special ways. Contact between them appeared to be planned—not an accidental outcome of spatial proximity, says study co-author Cristina Becchio of Turin. “These findings force us to predate the emergence of social behavior,” she says.
I thought that it (they) were just blobs of protoplasm before birth...
Huge pro-life article (yes, both series and hugh!!!)
Ping for later.
When women abort one of their twins for this reason or that, it’s extremely disturbing, not that all abortion isn’t, but how do they expect their surviving twin to come into the world emotionally sound, when its witnessed its first murder before even leaving the womb.
“When women abort one of their twins for this reason or that....”
The PC term is ‘Selective Reduction’.
I’m a twin, and pretty darned happy that I wasn’t reduced.
Being a mother of twins, I can assure you they interact with each other. Some days it felt they were have a fist fight! ;-)
Sometimes I swear I heard the faint words “He’s touching me”, don’t copy me!” ;-)
(And yes, they are much more social than my singles ever were.)
No kidding. I swear that people who make their careers from research just sit and dream up stupid ideas to research because most of the significant stuff’s been done already.
That’s interesting! I wonder if it’s exactly the same whether the twins are identical or fraternal? Same sex or different sex? My niece had twin fraternal girls. One of the twins, from the time she was a very teeny baby, when you’d hold her on your shoulder and pat her back as if to burp or comfort her, she would take her little hand and pat your back in the same way.
Did you know that the fetuses purposefully stroke the heads of their twins? I didn’t know that. Based on what I read, I don’t think they spent a small fortune on this study although in backwoods GA anything over the price of a wad of tobacco would be a small fortune! :)
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HA...my Mother told me I did that when I was a baby....and I was NOT a twin....
To the “had-aborts” who are still trying to justify what they did instead of repenting,
they HAVE to be “just blobs of cells”,
because the alternative is murder.
Re: me too, Grin!
Being as one of them became a state runner-up champ wrestler, I KNOW he was practicing his moves long before I saw him. He wore the skin off his knees in the hospital bassinet before he came home. He’d scootch up to the end and keep on “spinning his wheels”.
The thing was, I’d been checked by three doctors and not one of them caught on that I was carring two. Just told me that it would be a big baby.
I didn’t think so, unless it had octopus arms and legs. Too much movement in too many directions at once.
Maybe I’m way off base here, but I always felt that the word ‘fetus’ preserves the distance that ‘science’ likes to maintain between us and ‘baby.’ Why do these researchers not refer to these little people as babies? My God, how much more insane study is needed before they accept that? Nevertheless, I am so touched to envision these babies touching and relating to each other....
Yep! I was able beat my twin brother at Pinochle consistently after week 16, and he used to pound on me when we played Cribbage...
My thought too..that baby would have PTS in the womb
My son has a very slightly deformed ear, because no matter how his sister moved, he always made sure he moved too, to keep his head resting on her in utero. She has no marks, but his ear will always be like that (they are almost 9 now). For the first six months they would not sleep unless they were in the same crib. He is very protective of her and just adores her still. It all started months before they were even born.
Fishing for grant money is a fine art. The "research" is something else.
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