The Creative God

Psalm 139v13 For You formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother's womb. 14I will praise You, for I am fearfully [and] wonderfully made; Marvelous are Your works, And [that] my soul knows very well.

Touch
Just before the 8th week of gestation, your baby develops his first sensitivity to touch. The first parts of his body to experience sensitivity are the ones that are the most sensitive in adults.
It starts in the cheek and then quickly extends to the genital area (10 weeks), psalms (11 weeks), and soles of the feet (12 weeks). By 17 weeks, the abdomen and buttocks are also sensitive. Your baby may stroke his face, suck his thumb, or feel other body parts. By 32 weeks, nearly every part of your baby's body is sensitive to heat, cold, pressure, and pain.
At birth, babies are suddenly thrust into a bright, cold world, where their arms and legs can suddenly move freely. This new freedom can make babies frantic and they may flail and thrash about. Swaddling, lots of cuddling and baby "wearing' in a sling is soothing to newborns. Breastfeeding ensures that a baby spends several hours in mother's arms.
 
Taste
By 13 to 15 weeks your baby's taste buds already look like an adult's, and the amniotic fluid that surrounds your baby can smell strongly of curry, cumin, garlic, onion, or other strong tastes from your diet. (This will help your baby adapt to your way of eating, once he's on solids.) Studies show that a foetus's swallowing increases when surrounded by sweet tastes and decreases with bitter and sour tastes.
During the last trimester, your baby swallows up to a liter of amniotic fluid a day, which may serve as a way to introduce your baby to your breast milk (which also carries food flavours from your diet).
By birth, babies have a strong sense of taste, still preferring sweet tastes over sour or bitter tastes. Babies also show a strong preference for breast milk and breastfeeding, especially after the first few months.
 
Smell
The brain's olfactory (smell) center forms very early in foetal development. The nose develops between 11 and 15 weeks. Until recently, scientists didn't believe that foetuses had a sense of smell, since it was assumed that smelling depended on air and breathing. However, the latest research has opened up a new world of possibilities. The nasal system is made up of no less that four subsystems, and it's now believed that the amniotic fluid surrounding the foetus passes through the baby's oral and nasal cavities, triggering these senses.
Newborn babies have a keen sense of smell. Within the first few days they will show a preference for the smell of their own mother, especially to her breast milk.
 
Hearing
It's a noisy world inside you; what with gurglings from your digestive system, pounding and whooshing as your blood is pumped and circulated, plus the sounds of yours and other voices, music, etc.
Your baby's ears begin to form at around 8 weeks and become structurally complete at about 24 weeks. But as early as 18 weeks, the bones of the inner ear and the nerve endings from the brain have developed enough fro your baby to hear his little world. He may even be startled by loud noises. For the rest of the pregnancy, sound serves as a baby's major information channel. By week 25, your baby begins to hear your voice and may even recognize and be calmed by it as early as week 27. Sound may be muffled, though, because the ears are still covered with vernix, the thick waxy coating that protects the skin from becoming chapped by the amniotic fluid.
Hearing is fully developed in newborns. A baby with normal hearing should startle in response to loud sounds, pay attention to his mother's voice, and briefly stop moving when he hears a sound at a conversational level. Infants seem to prefer a higher-pitched voice (the mother's) to a low sounding voice (males). They can also tune out loud noises after hearing them several times.
 
Vision
Sight is the last sense to develop. As early as week 18, when the eyes are still closed, your baby's retinas can detect a small amount of light filtering through your tissue if you're out in the bright sun or under strong lights. In utero, eyelids remain closed until about the 26th week in order for the retinas to fully develop.
Around week 26, the eyes open and blink. By week 33, the pupils of the eye can now detect light and constrict and dilate, allowing your baby to see dim shapes. Studies shining a bright light on the belly of a woman at 37 weeks have shown a baby's heart rate speeding up in response, or the baby turning toward the light.
During the first few months, your baby may have uncoordinated eye movements and may even appear cross-eyed. He is born with the ability to focus only at close range; about 25-30 cm or the distance between your face and your baby in arms.
Your baby should be able to follow or track an object in the first few weeks. His focus improves over the first 2 to 3 years of life to a normal 20/20 vision. Newborns can detect light and dark but cannot see all colours. At birth, his eyes are a little more that half the size of yours. They grow the most in the first year, then they slowly grow until puberty.
 
from"Your Pregnancy - Issue 48 Dec/Jan 2006/7)