ABSTRACT
Studies in pregnant humans (Querleu, Renard, Versyp, Paris-Delrue, & Crepin 1988; Querleu, Renard, Bontteville, & Crepin, 1989) and sheep (Armitage, Baldwin, & Vince, 1980; Gerhardt, Abrams & Oliver, 1990) leave little doubt of the existence of a varied foetal sound environment, heavily dominated by mother’s voice and other internal noises and permeated by rich and diversified rhythmic and tonal surrounding sounds. Interest in the foetal sound environment has come from diverse groups, some uneasy over the potential harmful effects of excessive noise levels on development and function of foetal hearing, others utilising a prenatal response to sound in the development of tests designed to assess foetal well-being.
