We believe every SOUL is made in the Image of God
and worthy of love.
It is clear from the science that unborn children are already amazingly complex human beings!
What we know...
Days 1-15
Genetic Code
A unique human forms when a sperm combines with an egg at fertilization. There is a flash of light that happens at conception.
There is enough genetic variation that no two humans have been, or ever will be, genetically identical.
A woman won’t realize that she is pregnant (because she misses her period), until the embryo has been inside her for at least 15 days. At this point the embryo has a body plan.
Days 21-42
Heart and Mind
Many women wait to take a test until about a week after missing their period. At this point, the unborn baby’s heart has started beating and the brain has started forming.
The unborn baby starts moving in the fifth week after conception. Brain activity has been recorded from unborn babies as early as six weeks after conception.
The baby’s brain is a growing machine! The brain creates 250,000 neurons per minute from 7 weeks to 28 weeks.
Week 10
Complexity
By 10 weeks gestation, the fetus performs complex behaviors like hiccupping, swallowing, and sucking their thumb. These behaviors require brain signals to travel through nerves and reach muscles.
The brain and body are functional!
Doctors can tell whether the unborn baby is likely to be right-handed or left-handed by seeing which thumb the unborn baby prefers sucking.
Weeks 16-18
Sensitivity
By 16 weeks the fetus may respond to sound. It’s time to start reading and singing to that little one! The baby is born recognizing his mother’s native language as well as stories, songs, and even individual words that he heard in the womb.
By 18 weeks there is no question that the fetus feels pain. When doctors performed a painful procedure on fetuses without anesthesia, those fetuses responded with vigorous body movements and an increase in circulating stress hormones.
Need options counseling? Call us for a referral.
If you have already terminated a pregnancy, please know that you are loved and you are not alone. Healing is possible. Feel free to reach out to us for a referral to post-abortive counseling if needed.
For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place,
when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed body;
all the days ordained for me were written in your book
before one of them came to be.
Psalm 139:13-16
Fun Facts
In the second trimester, the fetus tastes flavors in the amniotic fluid. After the mother eats, flavors from her food seep into the amniotic fluid, with the flavors peaking about 45 minutes after she eats. These flavors help train the fetus to enjoy food from the mother’s food culture.
The fetus also has some preferences of his or her own! If the amniotic fluid tastes sweet because of an injection of saccharin, the fetus swallows more amniotic fluid. If the amniotic fluid tastes bitter, the fetus swallows less amniotic fluid.
If a mother drinks carrot juice daily for a month during pregnancy, her baby will enjoy baby foods with carrots when he first starts eating solid food.
Taste
The baby’s heart beats about 54 million times between conception and birth.
You can calculate how many times your heart has beat here.
Heartbeat
Surviving
Thanks to advances in medical technology and training, the youngest baby to survive was born in December of 2019 at 21 weeks and 0 days gestation.
Unborn
Fun Facts
Babies are born with more neurons than they will ever have again (about 100 billion). We lose up to 40% of our neurons between birth and adulthood.
During the first two years of life, a child’s neurons get over-connected, but only the useful connections survive. Early experiences can deeply affect final brain circuits.
Neurons
A newborn can recognize his mother simply by smelling her sweat.
Babies are better at discriminating by smell than adults.
Smell
Vision
Infants are born legally blind and with very little perception of color, but their vision improves dramatically over their first six months outside the womb. For a simulation of an infant’s vision, see this image.
Born
Thank you to Dr. Katrina Furth for presenting this research for the benefit of SOUL's community.
Katrina Furth, Ph.D. is a neuroscientist and an associate scholar with the Charlotte Lozier Institute.
"Today I ask heaven and earth to be witnesses. I am offering you life or death, blessings or curses.
Now, choose life! Then you and your children may live."
Deuteronomy 30:19