A startling discovery by Dutch scientists as reported in BioEdge:
Dutch scientists have discovered that 30-week foetuses have memories. A study in the July/August 2009 issue of the journal Child Development conducted by researchers at Maastricht University Medical Centre and the University Medical Centre St. Radboud will provide more ammunition for anti-abortion activists.The scientists studied about 100 healthy pregnant Dutch women and their fetuses. After receiving a number of stimuli, the fetus no longer responds to the stimulus and the stimulus is then accepted as “safe.” In a second session, the fetus “remembers” the stimulus and the number of stimuli needed for the fetus to habituate is then much smaller.
They concluded that a 30-week foetus has a short-term memory of about 10 minutes. They also found that a a 34-week-old foetus can store information and remember it as long as four weeks later.
