17 week foetus breaks into big smile

LONDON - The beaming smile is unmistakable - it sits well on the tiny face of a foetus just 17 weeks old.

The scan seems to suggest that a baby can experience happiness and pain much earlier in its development than previously suspected.

Many experts, however, say that a foetus is naturally sedated and unconscious in the womb and cannot experience any senses, reports the Daily Mail.

Stuart Campbell, who took the picture at his London clinic with 3-D and 4-D scanning equipment, said it did not necessarily show the unborn child had feelings, but it was certainly displaying human behaviour.

“This is a joyful expression of the humanity of the foetus. I have seen a foetus making a crying face at around 18 or 19 weeks, but not a nice smile. This is the earliest on record - it is just a delight.”

Campbell, former head of obstetrics and gynaecology at the King’s College and St George’s hospitals in London, said he did not know what caused the smile.

The baby is due in January and its parents, Louise and Sam Henry from Swallowfield, Berkshire, admitted they were stunned to see the smiling face during a routine scan.

Henry, 40, who runs a financial advice business, said: “Your primary concern at that stage is that you have a healthy baby but to see the foetus smiling was absolutely fantastic.”

Yehudi Gordon, who runs the private Viveka gynaecology clinic in London, said: “At 17 weeks the baby could be smiling or it could be the facial muscles getting together in preparation for sucking and feeding.”