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Is it possible to predict if your baby will be left-handed or right-handed in the womb? “Yes,” say Italian researchers.

By on December 8, 2017

Many famous people are born lefties such as ex US presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, musician Paul McCartney, artist Leonardo de Vinci and international boxing champion Manny Pacquiao.

Social science claims lefties are more intelligent than righties in terms of divergent thinking.  A 1986 study  seems to echo that advantage.  For parents who want to know if their unborn child will be a lefty or a righty, here’s some exciting news.

A joint study carried out by Italian researchers at the International School for Advanced Studies SISSA Trieste headed by  Valentina Parma and Professor Umberto Castiello of the Universita Degli Studi Di Padova found that a baby’s handedness as early as 18 weeks in the womb can accurately be predicted through movement patterns.

The team studied 29 fetuses making three different hand movements at 14 weeks, 18 weeks, and 22 weeks of gestation through a 4D ultrasound and made their predictions. Nine years later, they came back to their subjects and matched them with which hand ultimately became dominant.

“The accuracy of the method used in this study opens new perspectives for its use in the clinical field. Hand preference, in fact, is due to the prevalence of one cerebral hemisphere, the contra lateral one, over the other. This characteristic has sometimes been associated to pathologies which involve a cerebral asymmetry, such as depression, schizophrenia and autistic spectrum disorders,” research says.

This new discovery is useful in identifying ways and methods to intervene development problems in babies at an early stage for a more effective treatment.

About Julie Wilson