How What We Say About Babies Before Birth Actually Rewires Their Future
As someone who works in early childhood education and has a profound interest in early brain development, I frequently reflect on how experiences, both positive and negative, influence early brain development. I’ve considered the impact of our words regarding babies even before they arrive. However, discovering this groundbreaking research published in Communications Psychology revealed to me that there’s far more significance to the concept of “overheard speech” than I initially appreciated.
The Neuroscience Behind the Words
Here’s what fascinates me as someone who studies brain development: the human brain is constantly making predictions about the world based on the information it receives. During pregnancy, expectant parents are essentially building the first neural networks of expectation about their child. These mental representations—the thoughts, feelings, and beliefs parents hold about their baby—aren’t just abstract concepts floating around in their heads. They’re literally shaping neural pathways that will influence how parents interact with their child.
And here’s the twist: this new research shows that healthcare providers are accidentally hijacking this process
When Medical Visits Become Memory Makers
From a neuroscience perspective, prenatal care visits are perfect storms for memory formation. They’re emotionally charged (activating the amygdala), highly salient (capturing focused attention), and often involve novel information (engaging the hippocampus). This combination creates what we call ”snapshot memories”—vivid, detailed recollections that can influence behavior for years.
Researchers Hill, K.E., Blum, A.L., Carell, R. et al. tracked over 300 pregnant women and made a stunning discovery: when parents described their unborn babies using words influenced by prenatal care visits, those descriptions were significantly more negative than descriptions from other sources. But here’s what really caught my attention as an child development advocate —these negative prenatal descriptions predicted actual behavioral and emotional difficulties in toddlers 18 months later.
This isn’t correlation; this is causation playing out in real time.
The Experimental Evidence That Convinced Me
What really sold me on this research was the experimental component. The researchers didn’t just observe patterns—they tested causation. They had participants watch identical ultrasound videos but varied only what the healthcare provider said about the baby’s behavior during imaging difficulties.
The results were striking: when providers blamed the baby for imaging problems (“This baby is so uncooperative”), participants described that baby much more negatively than when providers used neutral language or focused on the parent-child relationship. Same baby, same behavior, different words—completely different mental representations formed.
As someone who studies how the brain processes and stores information, this makes perfect sense. The brain doesn’t store neutral observations; it stores interpretations. And healthcare providers, whether they realize it or not, are providing the interpretive framework that parents use to understand their baby’s behavior.
The Neural Networks We’re Building
From a developmental perspective, what’s happening here is profound. When a parent repeatedly hears and thinks about their baby as “stubborn,” “uncooperative,” or “difficult,” they’re not just forming opinions—they’re building neural pathways that will influence their caregiving responses.
The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy in Neural Terms
What we’re seeing here is a neurobiological self-fulfilling prophecy. When providers plant negative descriptors about a baby, they’re influencing the parents’ mental representations. These representations shape caregiving behaviors, which in turn influence the child’s brain development and behavioral outcomes.
These pathways affect:
- Attention bias: What behaviors parents notice and how they interpret them
- Emotional regulation: How parents manage their own feelings during challenging moments
- Caregiving sensitivity: How attuned and responsive parents are to their child’s needs
- Attachment security: The fundamental trust and safety the child develops
The developing child’s brain, in turn, is constantly adapting to these parental responses. If a parent expects difficulty and approaches interactions with tension or frustration, the child’s stress response systems activate more frequently. Over time, this can actually alter the child’s neural development, creating the very behavioral difficulties that were initially just words.
The Hopeful Flip Side
However, what excites me most about this research is that it also reveals the incredible power we have to influence development in positive directions. When providers used relationship-focused language—emphasizing connection, future opportunities to see the baby, or the developing bond—participants described babies much more positively.
This suggests we can literally wire parents for more positive, attuned caregiving by being more intentional with our language during these crucial moments.I want every healthcare provider to understand: you’re not just providing medical care during prenatal visits. You’re participating in the earliest stages of brain development—both the parent’s brain and the baby’s future neural development.
When you say “This baby is being stubborn,” you’re not making a neutral observation. You’re potentially triggering a cascade of neural events that could influence:
- How that parent interprets their child’s behavior for years to come
- The emotional tone of early parent-child interactions
- The child’s developing stress response systems
- The formation of secure or insecure attachment patterns
For Community Agencies and Support Workers
Those of us working with young mothers, teen parents, and trauma survivors need to understand that language shapes neurobiology. When we help parents reframe negative descriptions of their babies, we’re not just being supportive—we’re potentially rewiring neural pathways.
Instead of reinforcing negative provider comments (“I know the doctor said she’s stubborn, but…”), we can help parents build new, more positive mental representations of their child. This isn’t just feel-good psychology; it’s evidence-based neural intervention.
New Thinking on Language and Child Development
This study employed rigorous methodology to demonstrate something I had not considered: the unintended negative interpretation that a statement like “stubborn” or “uncooperative” could have on children’s developmental outcomes. The researchers followed families longitudinally, used expert ratings of emotional tone, and even included an experimental component to test causation.
The effect sizes were meaningful—not just statistically significant, but practically important. We’re talking about medium to large effects on how parents see their children and how those children actually behave almost two years later.
Moving Forward: A Call for Mindful Language
As someone who actively studies early brain development, I’m convinced that this research represents a paradigm shift in how we think about early intervention. We don’t have to wait until after birth to start supporting healthy development. We can begin by being intentional about the language we use during pregnancy.
Every interaction with expectant parents is an opportunity to establish positive neural pathways that will benefit both the parent and the child. When we say “Your baby seems very comfortable in there” instead of “This baby isn’t cooperating,” we’re doing more than being nice—we’re engaging in evidence-based developmental intervention.
The developing brain is incredibly plastic, constantly adapting to the information it receives. By understanding the power of our words, we can help ensure that the first neural networks parents build about their children are networks of connection, hope, and positive expectation.
Because in the end, every child deserves to have their story begin with words of welcome, not words of frustration. And now we have the science to prove why this matters.