Jennifer Lopez is Cranking Up the Classical Music for Her Babies

J-Lo has jumped on the classical music during pregnancy bandwagon. She reportedly listened to it throughout her pregnancy and now has the music playing in the nursery. The question I have is, does classical music really make babies smarter? I’ve heard of moms exposing their children to the likes of Baby Einstein in the hopes of attaining “the Mozart effect.”

For those of you not familiar, the Mozart effect is “a theory that listening to Mozart’s music can enhance intellect, or at least some components of intellectual function. The term was first coined by Alfred A. Tomatis who used Mozart’s music as the listening stimulus in his work attempting to cure a variety of disorders. The approach has been popularized in a book by Don Campbell, who trademarked the term, and is based on an experiment published in Nature suggesting that listening to Mozart temporarily boosted students’ IQ by 8 to 9 points. As a result, The Governor of Georgia, Zell Miller proposed a budget to provide every child born in Georgia with a CD of classical music.” (So says Wikipedia.)

I know a lot of new moms that use Baby Einstein, and whether they really do it in the hopes of smarter kids (or just a few moments for mommy to regain her sanity) I say what’s the harm? As long as you don’t plunk the kids down in for hours on end, they are still learning. After all, I learned to spell my first word, not because dear old mom read to me but because I was watching Seasame Street.