DUPLICATE--PLEASE DELETE

[Roaming]

This is from a journal out of Britain.

Check the link for photos: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/3846525.stm

Baby 'walking' in the womb
A new type of ultrasound scan has produced vivid pictures of a 12 week-old foetus "walking" in the womb. The new images also show foetuses apparently yawning and rubbing its eyes.

The scans, pioneered by Professor Stuart Campbell at London's Create Health Clinic, are much more detailed than conventional ultrasound.

Professor Campbell has previously released images of unborn babies appearing to smile.

He has compiled a book of the images called Watch Me Grow.

Conventional ultrasound, usually offered to mothers at 12 and 20 weeks, produces 2D images of the developing foetus.

These are very useful for helping doctors to measure and assess the growth of the foetus, but convey very little information about behaviour.

Complex behaviour

More pictures of developing foetuses
Professor Campbell has perfected a technique which not only produces detailed 3D images, but records foetal movement in real time.

He says his work has been able to show for the first time that the unborn baby engages in complex behaviour from an early stage of its development.

Professor Campbell told the BBC: "This is a new science for understanding and mapping out the behaviour of the baby.

"Maybe in the future it will help us understand and diagnose genetic disease, maybe even conditions like cerebral palsy which puzzles the medical profession as to why it occurs."

The images have shown:

From 12 weeks, unborn babies can stretch, kick and leap around the womb - well before the mother can feel movement

From 18 weeks, they can open their eyes although most doctors thought eyelids were fused until 26 weeks

From 26 weeks, they appear to exhibit a whole range of typical baby behaviour and moods, including scratching, smiling, crying, hiccuping, and sucking.
Until recently it was thought that smiling did not start until six weeks after birth.

An hour long session using the new technology, which is not yet available on the NHS, costs £275.

[kikiek]

1. This keeps popping up. Seems like it is more to spark a fight

among people here than anything.

[hlthe2b]

2. Yet another important reason...

to get the "morning after pill" available OTC as the FDA's unanimous advisory panel recommended and the Bushies* have blocked.

I am staunchly pro-choice, but if faced with making a decision to abort (even at the risk of my own life), having this kind of evidence of the extent of fetal development at 12 weeks out there would be very haunting to me. I feel sorry for women who have to make the decision and then face both the wrath and guilt heaped on them by segments of society who point to this.... I'm sure it will be maximally used and exploited by the RW...

[LizW]

3. Would have been a lot cheaper

to ask a few women who have been pregnant what the babies do in the womb. ;)

My older son hiccupped like crazy (usually when I was trying to sleep). Both my sons were masters of the "rib kick" and the "bladder punch". Ow!!!

[Roaming]

4. LOL! And don't forget the somersaults. My cat would sit on my

belly and be almost catapulted in the later months.

[hlthe2b]

5. As early as 12 weeks?