[that]

Regarding the volume, I was aware that babies respond to external voices at normal "speaking" levels so I went with a pair of old foam-covered headphones, the type which you have to buy on cheaper airline flights in order to be able to hear the in-flight movie.

The ones I used were from our honeymoon and happened to be the type which clip over each ear independently, so we just laid them either side of the bump. I have a vague idea that we might have tried to secure them somehow, but to be perfectly honest I can't think how, as it was over 10 years ago now and I'm pretty sure Pam would have rebelled if I'd tried to afix them to her belly with duct tape... 

I was concerned at first about the risk of it being too loud, so I found a comfortable listening level for myself then dropped it half a notch; despite all the layers of "insulation" between Ben and the outside world, it would seem that I stumbled upon a suitable level. We went to a firework display at about the 6-month mark, and he certainly let Pam know when that was too loud for him! The playing-of-tapes was normally done during the evening in a quiet, relaxed atmosphere with no TV or music in the background, which I guess were all condusive to his concentration, as it were.

My sister-in-law used to watch a particular TV soap opera several nights a week while she was pregnant with my nephew, and he apparently associated the title theme music with his Mum relaxing, because when he was born, he would always calm down whenever EastEnders came on. They cottoned onto this pretty quickly, and managed to buy a copy of the theme tune on CD, which they then played to him in the evening to get him to go to sleep. It worked a treat. I don't know if she was in the habit of turning the TV up loud, but she certainly wasn't sitting on top of it, so perhaps they can hear better than we might have expected.

KL - thanks, but you've rather outdone me here; I'm a database guy, and web design is most definitely not my forte, so seeing what you've achieved with BrillBaby has only reinforced my conviction that my own page looks decidely amateurish. Ah well... 

Have you read the prenatal section of brillbaby's site?

Yes, I saw the mention of Brent Logan, Thomas Verny and Rene Van de Carr. I assume these are just experts propounding a theory then, not actually trying to sell something (except maybe a book)?

Does anyone hereabouts have any experience of any other prenatal learning "systems" (for want of something else to call them)?

I read a magazine article about this many years ago, and decided to have a go at it for myself when my wife fell pregnant with our first child. My technique involved spoken word on audio tape - there, that gives you a clue how long ago this was - and it worked like a charm, although we didn't appreciate the extent at the time. Unfortunately I had misplaced the tape by the time our second was conceived and, at that time having a nearly-2-year-old, it all seemed like too much hassle to record a new one, so we didn't bother that time around. It's only when our son started school that we started to understand the difference which it had made.

I've decided to try to start a campaign to promote awareness of the benefits of prenatal learning, and I've documented my experience. At this point I'd like to include a rather shameless plug for my own website, http://www.SmarterBabies.info, which is where you can read about it. I'm no journalist, and my writing skills therefore sometimes leave a bit to be desired, but I think it gets the point across.

So in the interest of presenting a well-rounded view of the whole topic, I'm curious to know if there are any commercial prenatal learning techniques which involve use of the spoken word? All those which I've come across mention of so far seem to involve either music or rhythmic sounds, but I'm pretty sure that the article which I read was specifically about stimulating growth in the areas of the brain which are responsible for language recognition.

I realise that it's difficult to measure the results with any degree of accuracy, because most parents wouldn't be subjecting their 5-year-old to an IQ test unless they're deliberately trying to raise a "genius", in which case they'll probably also be doing lots of other things to stimulate intelligence too. I personally don't think it's fair to push a child towards their Ph.D in their mid-teens, as the TV documentaries which I've seen about a few of these "prodigies" seems to indicate that they've not had much of a childhood, and their social life is likely to suffer as a consequence in later life. Not that I'm disparaging the techniques being advocated on these forums though; my wife and I followed some similar lines ourselves, encouraging constructive play in both our children, reading to them from an early age, and sending them both to a Montessori day-nursery which promoted the same concepts.

So, anyway: BabyPlus was actually the only other which I'd heard of before stumbling across this site. What are the others, what do they involve, and are they any good?