Unborn babies can hear clearly at about 20 weeks of pregnancy and research suggests that they will remember the music you have played up to the age of twelve months.

Dr Alexandra Lamont is a Lecturer in the Psychology of Music at Keele University, says: "It used to be assumed that it was really noisy in the womb but actually it's quite quiet. "So the baby should be able to hear your stereo at a reasonable volume. You don't need to apply headphones to your bump!

So what to play to them?
Dr Lamont says: "Any kind of music that you like, although bass frequencies will travel through fluid better and be more audible to your unborn baby."

And how does it make them feel?
Opera singer Kathryn Singleton participated in the BBC1 project, A Child Of Our Time. The BBC played both opera and the soundtrack for Pulp Fiction to Kathryn's unborn baby, Matthew. She says: "With the opera, his heartbeat changed with the moods of the piece, then with the really fast Pulp Fiction song he just went absolutely nuts."

Hip-hop artist Blade believes music played to his son J in his mother's womb had an effect months later. He said: "Before J was even born, I used to play him Eric B. & Rakim in the womb. He was about four months old crying his eyes out and I put on Eric B. & Rakim, and he started smiling."

Dr. Lamont has found that if you play the same piece of music every day for the last three months of pregnancy, and play it back to your one year old, he or she will recognise it.
Kathryn Singleton thinks the effects might last even longer than 12 months:

"I was five months pregnant with my first child while I was performing Aida, so he would have heard it all the time whilst in the womb. Then, I did Aida again when he was five years old. He came to a performance and sat totally still for three hours, without moving a muscle. He would never normally sit like that through the whole performance. He'd get bored. I'm convinced it's something to do with having heard it when he was in the womb."