Remembering being in the womb?

[Lellaspop]

Can a child remember being in the womb? Seems a silly question, but we asked my 2 year-old about this today. We asked if it was dark or light (dark), dry or wet (wet, and that she was swimming), if she was hungry (no), if she ate anything (no), what colour it was (red and pink), what it sounded like (noisy, like 'boom, boom, boom'), and whether she had her nappy on (no, all naked)!!!

This seems unbelievable and a little bit scary!

Wow!!

Pretty amazing if she really does remember. She sounds like a very good communicator.

I thought the oxytocin at birth was supposed to block memories (for both mums and babies) and that's why we keep having more babies, because we forget the pain.

Oh, I forgot she also said she 'came out of Mama's bum'!!!

She's a good talker alright but I've never heard of anything like this before.

I should add that none of this was prompted, we've never spoken to her about being in Mum's tummy other than in passing conversation.

That's really interesting - I don't think you should dismiss it completely but keep an open mind about where the ideas have come from. Would anyone else have discussed these things in her presence ? Not knowingly I mean but could she have picked it up from adult conversation ?

We've never talked to her in any detail, only said that she came from Mum's tummy. It's seems like there's too much detail for it to be coincidence.

I might quiz her some more tomorrow!

I read somewhere ages ago that babies can remember being in the womb/being born, up until about the age of 2, but most babies lose those memories before they are able to communicate them.

I think thats really cool!!

I asked ds about this the other day.
He said 'Yes. It was FOUL.'

My goodness that is amazing, I dont remember a thing, if i asked dd 3.9 she would not be able to tell me. Doesnt sound very common to remember being in the womb.

I recently read the autobiography of the author Robert Westall, which included quite a convincing account of being in the womb that he claimed to remember - he remembered enjoying falling and hitting a sort of trampoline.

I don't see why there wouldn't be some kind of mechanism that blocks memories and then there are a few people for whom the mechanism doesn't work (eg they are not so sensitive to the hormone).