History of Dogs Being Able to Hear Babies in the Womb
Dogs are known for their amazing hearing. Researchers have concluded that this great hearing was passed down from their ancestors—wolves. It has been determined that wolves probably evolved to have a keen sense of hearing to help them better find prey in the wild.
The main part of a wolf’s diet is small rodents. These small rodents make high-pitched squeals that may be hard to detect from afar. This hearing ability made it possible for wolves to hunt small rodents without scaring them away in the process.
This ability to hear quiet sounds from far away is hard for humans to understand. Dogs actually hear up to four times as well as humans. One reason that dogs can hear more than humans is because they have more muscles in their ears than humans do. While humans have six muscles in their ears, dogs have 18. These muscles give dogs the ability to move their ears in a number of different ways that help amplify sounds. The shape of a dog’s ear also contributes to their hearing abilities. The curved shape helps sound reach the eardrums.
Signs Dogs Can Hear Babies in the Womb
It is completely possible that your dog can hear an unborn baby’s heartbeat in the womb. They may also be able to hear your baby cry in the womb, which can start at about 28 weeks. No matter what they are hearing, it is unavoidable that dogs know that there is something going on in the body of a pregnant woman. Dogs are intuitive creatures that can see, smell, and hear changes going on that we may not even notice ourselves. They can see changes in mood, behavior, and body chemistry, to name a few.
In addition to the great hearing ability that dogs possess, they also have a very keen sense of smell. This sense of smell allows them to smell hormonal changes in a pregnant woman’s body. By the time the baby is making noise inside the body, your dog has likely already sniffed out the hormones responsible for pregnancy.
If you notice your dog giving your belly confused looks, they are probably hearing something that you can’t. You will see them tilt their heads and perk their ears up. You may also notice that your baby just stares at your belly a lot, too.
If your dog displays the following body language signs, they are probably hearing an unborn baby:
Other signs that dogs can hear babies in the womb include:
How can I tell if my dog is pregnant after 3 weeks?
“About three weeks after she has become pregnant, a female dog may start to show some mild stomach upset, a drop in her appetite and sometimes even vomiting,” she says. “This is similar to human morning sickness and occurs because of hormonal swings.”
Why did we hear my baby’s heartbeat at my 6 week ultrasound, but heard nothing at 8 weeks?
One of the amazing things about dogs is their noses and their ability to detect and remember scents, long after being exposed to the original odor. When a person is pregnant, the hormones in their body are likely to alter their scent in some way. So, can dogs sense pregnancy? Because of their keen sense of smell, it’s believed by many that a dog can detect a change in a pregnant person even before they do — but it’s mostly conjecture. “I suspect that dogs can smell something we cannot,” says Dr. Ann Hohenhaus, DVM, a staff doctor at New York City’s Animal Medical Center.
She explains that dogs have 60 times as many smell receptors as humans, and 40 times as much brainpower dedicated to smell, allowing them to differentiate 30,000 to 100,000 aromas. Because a huge part of a dog’s brain is devoted to analyzing odors, dogs are able to pick up on different scents resulting from chemical changes, cancer, insulin levels, bombs, drugs, a person’s menstrual cycle, and even pregnancy, according to Russ Hartstein, a certified behaviorist and dog trainer in Los Angeles.