When your mother began her third trimester of pregnancy, you looked a lot like this picture. During your seventh month in utero, you began to use all five of your senses!

Sight:

Ultrasound reveals that babies at this age like to open their eyes and look around. What were the first things that you saw? In the dark safety of the womb, the first thing that your eyes were able to distinguish was light. “… God said: Let there be light, and there was light. God saw that the light was good. God then separated the light from the darkness.” [1] You could see sunlight and artificial light as it penetrated through the uterine wall, and your pupils dilated and constricted in order to better see in your watery world.

Sound:

With your cochlea, the hearing organ of your inner ear, fully developed, you’ve been able to hear a variety of sounds for quite a while. At this particular age, you could even distinguish between different voices!

Smell:

At this age, important parts of your nose were fully operational, so that you had a fully functional sense of smell. Scientific studies show that infants born prematurely, at just 26 weeks in the womb, can detect different odors.

Taste:

Swallowing amniotic fluid, you tasted what your mother ate while she was in her third trimester of pregnancy, developing that affinity for the foods of home. Do you like licorice and those black jellybeans? Chances are that your mother ate something anise flavored while pregnant! Food tastes travel fast from mom to baby – reaching your little taste buds in just 45 minutes! Sweet tastes would make you swallow faster and bitter tastes would cause a less pleased reaction that even showed in the expression on your face!

Touch:

You had been sensitive and reactive to touch from a very early age, by just five weeks in utero. As you grew, more and more of your body detected touch and pressure and you even felt pain. By seven months in utero, your entire body was capable of feeling touch and the grasp of your hand was even stronger than it was right after you were born!

And you were on the move! Through a series of walking like motions, you liked to do somersaults! You received antibodies from your mother at this age, that would protect you from a wide variety of diseases. Small as you were, had you been born at this time, there was an extremely good chance that you would have been able to survive – a chance that increases with ever improving medical technology. Your brain waves, at this stage of fetal development, were similar to those of a full-term newborn – and you could even cry. Yet, shockingly, babies in utero are not, by governmental law, considered human beings at this point in life. Abortion is still legal in the third trimester of pregnancy.

 Sources:

 The Endowment for Human Development  https://www.ehd.org/dev_article_unit16.php

 Web M.D. http://www.webmd.com/baby/guide/your-pregnancy-week-by-week-weeks-26-30

Photo Image http://www.archbalt.org/family-life/respect-life/spiritual-adoption/upload/Bulletin-announ-w-baby-images.pdf

[1] Genesis 1:3