The kicks a mother feels from her unborn child may allow the baby to ‘map’ their own body and enable them to eventually explore their surroundings, suggests new research led by UCL in collaboration with UCLH.
For the study, published today in Scientific Reports, researchers measured brainwaves produced when newborn babies kick their limbs during rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, finding that fast brainwaves—a brainwave pattern typically seen in neonates—fire in the corresponding hemisphere.