Originally Posted by indigo
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I began reading to my DD each night while she was in the womb, and I always began by saying her name twice, in a particular, sing-song way... We were still in the delivery room... I said her name in that sing-song way. She immediately stopped wailing, and locked her eyes on mine. I was rocking her back and forth, and as she moved, her eyes moved to stay with me. I had read that she shouldn't be able to track moving objects with her eyes for weeks, so that was a shocker.
Yes! This is also supported by research - a baby's development of neural pathways in the brain can be fueled when people talk to and read to the baby.
DOE archive, Read With Me.
NPR article, Baby Talk (Hart & Risley).

There are huge potential personal and societal benefits when parents choose to interact with their babies in this way, even pre-born.
I wonder about this. My wife and I left our children from an early age with a live-in babysitter who was not that well educated. Maybe she talked to them as low-income mother talk to their children. I don't think this had a long-term detrimental impact on our children, although this is unknown. In general, when well-educated mothers go back to work, they are putting their children in the hands of less-educated women. Otherwise the economics don't work. In the day care setting those women are also caring for more children than a SAHM would be. I don't think the research has found that mothers working hurts the educational attainment of their children.