Features Overview
Month 7
The cerebral cortex, the outermost layer of the brain (often referred to as “grey matter” because the neurons are NOT insulated by the myelin sheath) is developing and growing quickly. The entire brain is estimated to have over 100 billion neurons by the time the baby is born. Just under 20% of those neurons are in the cerebral cortex.
It is beginning to manage the five senses, thinking, memory, and speech. It is also taking responsibility for motor reflexes such as fetal breathing and initiating movement.
It also supports the early learning experiences of your baby.
Simultaneously, the cerebellum (primarily responsible for motor control) is growing and developing faster than all the other parts of the brain. It’s surface area increases 30 times during this trimester. This is when the surface of your baby’s brain begins to wrinkle (called convolutions) so that it can hold more brain cells.
Baby is blinking, dreaming, and even smiling. Hands are fully formed, fingernails are growing - and the baby may actually grab a foot.
And he/she is listening, feeling, and learning.
Month 8
So even though this baby is still in the womb, he/she is actually picking up information from all its senses INCLUDING being able to track light (this is because the uterine wall - being stretched to make room for the growing baby - gets thin enough that the light can penetrate it - like the sun shining through curtains).
AND the brain is making neurons at a rate of about 250,000 cells PER MINUTE!!! Additionally, connections between all these individual nerve cells are being made at a super fast rate. When the baby is born, he/she will have OVER 100 billion neurons.
It is believed this little girl or boy can smell and taste the different foods Mom eats through the amniotic fluid. In fact, the baby can smell and taste EVERYTHING that ends up in the amniotic fluid, such as cigarette smoke (which is why smoking while pregnant is discouraged, since it is harmful) or even some beauty products.
The brain has made so many connections, that this baby is now able to make faces (especially if he/she doesn’t like the taste in the amniotic fluid), hiccupping, swallowing, breathing, sucking a thumb - or a hand, pushing hands and feet against the uterine wall, and turning around.
Basically, he/she is doing almost everything a newborn baby can do.
month 9
This last month of development IN the womb is one filled with rapid development. The baby’s brain triples in weight during the last trimester; the neurons are still multiplying at an amazing rate of speed AND the connections between them are forming just as quickly.
The cerebellum is still growing very quickly, as is the cerebral cortex. Both are getting ready to fully function once the baby is born.
His/her eyes are working - although everything will be blurry for a while after birth. But those tiny little ears have become very sensitized - and the songs sung or played for the baby will likely be recognized after birth. And, of course, the baby will recognize the sounds of the voices of those who regularly talk with him/her prior to birth.
Baby’s brain will continue to mature throughout childhood and beyond — researchers estimate that the brain only stops developing around age 25!
This development occurs at a fast and furious pace during the first three to five years of life. All of the major structures will be in place by the time he/she is 9 years old.
EVERYTHING that child experiences - from all the senses, from communicating with others, from playing, etc. - FOSTERS LEARNING and the child’s development of belief systems.
And even after the age of 9, the brain is still maturing. During the teen years, the prefrontal lobe (the area involved with reasoning, emotional regulation and motor control) becomes the primary part of the brain to develop, followed closely by the prefrontal cortex (the area involved with language production and higher level cognitive functioning). These are related to higher-level reasoning, such as making goal-oriented decisions, intelligence, memory encoding and retrieval, and language. Ideally, this will take over the part the amygdala has been handling (the “fight/flight/freeze” and “only doing what’s fun and/or feels good” part of the brain).
A lot is involved with the development of the brain, the creation of perceptions, and the formulation of beliefs. From the moment of conception to beyond when we are “full grown,” our brains are growing and developing, absorbing and processing information, creating connections that make sense (at least in the moment), and more - all of it designed to be able to navigate and make sense of our physical world.
If you are curious about what a fetal brain MRI looks like during the 7th, 8th, and 9th gestational months, click here.