Your baby’s brain develops rapidly in the third trimester. Here’s what you can do to make sure she’s healthy and developing
“Oh come on,” you’d say, “How can you make a foetus smarter in the womb? I’ll work on my baby’s intelligence after birth!”
You couldn’t be more wrong.
ISP or the Infant Siddha Programme in Mumbai trains hundreds of parents every year to create a special bond with their child from when they’re conceived and to raise them to be successful, intelligent and above all, happy individuals. Darshan Desai, an educationist and trainer with them asks parents in their program to start communicating with the baby as soon as she is conceived. “A baby exists as soon as she is conceived. On the 12th day after conception, neurons are generated in the brain. Everything the baby experiences in the womb stimulates his or her brain,” he says.
Your baby’s brain is going to start forming in the first month of your pregnancy. At this time, it will just be a few cells, but by the time you’re ready to deliver, the brain will grow up to billions of cells. During the course of those nine months, your baby’s brain is not only growing, but it is also learning and absorbing. Your baby is just a foetus, yes. But it is a foetus that is starting to respond to stimulation.
Yes, there are ways to ensure that your baby’s brain develops optimally and gets the right amount of stimulation. Read on to find out how you can work towards ensuring that your baby is born smart!
The Right Lifestyle
“A healthy diet for the mother is very important. After the seventh month of pregnancy, whatever the mother eats will be remembered by the child and will later be her preference or food choice,” warns Desai.
A good pregnancy diet does NOT mean piling on the calories or ‘eating for two’. Don’t consider your pregnancy as a license to eat all those maida and sugar rich foods. An optimal diet means that you’re providing your baby with all the essential nutrients it needs during this crucial time of foetal development. And it also means that you’re feeding your baby superfood for the brain.
