Researchers from the University of Parma in Italy have discovered that in the third trimester of pregnancy, the fetus can yawn immediately after its mother.
The study involved 38 pregnant women between 28 and 32 weeks of gestation. The women watched three types of videos: videos of people yawning, videos that simulated yawning, and neutral videos. Their faces were filmed, while fetal movement was simultaneously monitored via ultrasound.
While watching videos depicting genuine yawning, mothers often began yawning themselves. In 18 cases, the fetus yawned shortly after the mother. In control videos, such correlations were almost entirely absent. The more the mother yawned, the more frequently the baby yawned as well.
Researchers believe this is not visual imitation, as the infant does not "imitate" what it sees in the same way a newborn does. Rather, it is more likely that an internal physiological mechanism is activated, linked to changes occurring in the mother's body during yawning.
The study doesn't reveal the primary purpose of yawning (the leading hypothesis is that it cools the brain) or why it's contagious. But it does show that the motor program behind contagious yawning is formed very early, even before birth.
The researchers acknowledge that the findings are preliminary, the sample size was small, all participants were attending a single maternity center in Italy, and the gestational age ranged only between 28 and 32 weeks. Further studies with larger and more diverse groups are needed.
However, the findings are of interest to scientists and indicate that social synchronization between mother and child begins long before the child's first cry.
