Elimination communication

Loyal followers!  It seems that I am on the mend.  I took some advil AND tylenol last night and my temperature, from a high of 38.6C last night, was clocked at 36.2C this morning.  It is miraculous!  And all thanks to your thoughts and well-wishes no doubt.

What does communication mean to you?  Chew on that for a second.  Usually, I figure communication involves, at a minimum, some level of understanding, or at least a belief of an understanding, of an expressed message.  Good enough?

How about pre-natal communication?  One of the more interesting parts of this book is about prenatal communication.  The idea is this: by the 18th week (coming up for us!), the fetus is already able to hear noises surrounding it.  The most important, and comforting, noise is the mom's heartbeat.  Some cool experiments and a very cool anecdote are cited here (hope the links work; I wish this guy did a better job of citing the literature).  Still, I'm uneasy about the term 'communication;' maybe something more suitable would be 'aural stimulation.'  OK, I got over the terminology!

Once these guys and gals discovered that baby's can hear stuff, the question arose, 'so what?'  Here's maybe where I'm wrong on the communication terminology.  At some level, at least, it seems that baby's respond positively to certain aural stimulation: it can make them smarter! (here we go again).  This guy here doesn't appear to have hesitated much before taking this idea to the capitalist extreme.  His system, which expectant mother uses as a pouch, sets up a whole stimulation program using patterns of sounds replicating a heartbeat. Strap it on, quick and easy!

But where does a fellow like me, who wants to explore this here prenatal aural stimulation, go?  My superficial searching failed to turn up any regimented program, free for the people.  On the other hand, do I need one?  I'll try to take the time and do my own self-devised ad hoc vocal stimulation.  I'll take my cues from Rose.

(The title of this post, by the way, has nothing to do with the topic.  It's a kind of inside joke referring to a decidedly messier type of post-natal communication).