EXPECTANT MOTHERS WHO DANCE SALSA HAVE SMART CHILDREN

A typical pregnant woman in a Scandinavian country practises water aerobics 4 times a week and has 3 ultrasounds during pregnancy.

A typical pregnant woman in Serbia goes for an ultrasound every month, but she does not practise water aerobics.

Whose child will be more successful in the future?

If our child is more intelligent, can we expect him/her to perform better in later life?
Today, 7 of the top 10 occupations on the Forbs list did not exisit 25 years ago. We can be sure that we can best prepare our children for the future if we give them the ability to adapt to new chalenges. This ability to adjust is called intelligence.
However, since we know that there is no magic pill to increase a child`s intelligence, we need to "put some effort" into creating an intelligent child.

Smart parents and not very smart kids
According to the latest research across numerous studies, the old omnipresent belief that intelligence or intellectual abilities are inherited (ie that intelligent parents have intelligent children) has been overthrown.
Only 10% of our intelligence depends on inheritance, while about 90% is related to the number of synapses, i.e. the connection between the neurons (nerve cells) of our brains. The total number of neurons is about the same for everyone. What distinguishes individuals, and this difference is significant, is the number of connections (synapses) between nerve cells. Today, it is believed, as confirmed by numerous studies, that each person`s intellectual abilities depend on the number of connections between nerve cells.

The number of synapses is important for IQ, while the number of neurons is of secondary significance.

According to the latest studies, the development of synapses is related to the very early development of the child. Up to around 50% of all synapses in the brain form in the first 6 years of a child`s life, 75% of synapses are formed by the age of 9, and 95% of all synapses are formed by age of 12.

What we achieved by the age of 12, we live with for our whole life.

The key period for the formation of synapses and the future development of human intellectual abilities is up to the age of 12. After this, our intellectual abilities can only be improved by aroud 5%. An upgrade is necessary for anything that comes later (e.g education), which is easier and better achieved if we have more synapses.
It is precisely this period (from birth to age 12) that is the field of work and research of Dr Ranko Rajović, a specialist doctor in internal medicine and member of MENSA with a master`s degree in neuroendocrinology. He established the NTC learning system based on these facts and wrote the book "IQ is up to parents" that includes practical advice with specific tips and exercises that stimulate the development of synapses in children during this period.

NTC System of Learning, dr. Ranko Rajović

Exercises for higher intelligence
In essence, to maximize the intellectual capacity of a child, early stimulation up to the age of 6 (12 at the latest) is essential. They must expose their senses to as many complex movements as possible, preferably at the same time to stimulate the development of synapses. Children, in fact, have an innate need for these movements, but unfortunately the attitude of parents and the environment have dampened them. According to this approach, the most important subjects in elementary schools should be Music, Art and PE, but in practice these are often seen as the least important.

A real game for a child

Disgrace on the PISA test
Our children have been experiencing very poor results in international testing of functional knowledge (PISA tests) since 2003 because we have taken the wrong approach with them in preschool and in the first four years of elementary school. Other countries in our the region have also had rather poor results, including the USA. The best results were found in children from China or Chinese speaking areas. One of the reasons for this result lies certainly in our writing (European as a whole), on the one hand, and Chinese on the other. In the period of intentional development of synapses, which is up to 6 years of age, Chinese children begin to learn writing, in which one letter does not mean one speech sound, as is the case in our alphabet. For them one letter can mean a whole thought. This should be added to the fact that one average Chinese is considered functionally illiterate unless she/he knows at least 3,000 symbols of Chinese writing.

So right at the time of the most intensive development of synapses, Chinese children are exposed to a very complex writing system with a large number of symbols and learn them functionally, and thus develop their intellectual abilities (logically through the formation of a large number of synapses).

What happens when the baby is in the womb
According to recent research papers, there is increasing evidence that the prenatal period is of great importance for the development of humans, the development of their intellectual abilities, and even the generation of some disorders. The creation and development of neurosynapses starts and continues for as long as the baby is in the womb, especially for a period of 32 weeks between when the brain is already neurologically mature, and birth. The largest influence on the fetus is the environment, and that environment is the mother - everything that happens in the mother"s body is transmitted to the fetus.
This attitude coincides with the ancient but still current Chinese belief that your real age is the number of years + 1. When you ask a Chinese for their age, they will always say that they are one year older than the actual number of years since their birth because they count the year they spent in the womb.
The intense stresses suffered by a pregnant woman can lead to the birth of children who have an increased risk of poorer performance in life, in every respect. During the war, children whose mothers lost their partner during pregnancy, achieve less in their lives. This also applies to stress and care associated with pregnancy alone. The risk of having a child who will later develop problems is elevated in mothers who have been pregnant and for example are sedentary and stressed isolating the baby`s brain from movement, voices and any other stimulation.
Bearing in mind that about 90% of all pregnancies complete without any complications, it is a real detriment that in fact this significant period of pregnancy is not actively stimulated in order to stimulating the baby`s brain into activity.
Unfortunately, nowadays due to the large number of tests and examinations that are done during pregnancy, instead of benefiting the women, these tests and examinations are quite often unnecessarily and are a great cause of stress and worry in pregnant women.

WHAT IS THE PRENATAL STIMULATION OF A BABY`S BRAIN
Bearing in mind that the brain receives all its information through the senses and that the senses of sight, smell and taste of the baby in the uterus can not be affected, we come to the conclusion that only two senses, hearing and movement, are active in the fetus, and that they can be influence.
Therefore, during pregnancy, and especially from the 32nd to the 40th week, the pregnant woman must be very physically active. She should be involved in sports, walking, going to yoga, dancing etc.

How much sport is enough
If a woman is reasonably fit before pregnancy, then around 10 km in the morning and 10 in the evening, or 1.15 h in the morning and 1.15 h in the evening is a good level. Akvabik is very popular in the Scandinavian countries, where pregnant women are happy to attend 4 times a week throughout their entire pregnancy. In our country, the situation is completely reversed, because our pregnant women go to the UZ every month and often unnecessarily expose themselves to drugs and reduce their activity.

Punk, rock or classical
The positive role of music on the fetus has long been proven, so much so that there is even a type of music known as fetal music. In this sense, it seems that babies do not like rock, punk or folk music, they respond best to the works of Mozart, Vangelis and similar composers.
When the voice the baby hears is its mothers then the baby is definitely calmed by it, which is expected, but if the father is with the pregnant woman on a daily basis and, thus, with the baby, his baby`s voice will have the same effect even after birth. Listen and be calm in your father`s arms. But if the baby first heard their father`s voice after birth, they will experience him as something completely foreign and react negatively, wanting to return to their mother`s arms as soon as possible. So the "conversation" of a father with his baby in the womb is very important for their future relationship.
The sound the baby hears through the entire pregnancy is the sound of the mother`s aorta, the largest blood vessel, which passes directly from the womb, and will double-tap due to the double heartbeat and often becomes the child`s first word (MA-MA, TA-TA). This is just more proof of how well many babies in the womb hear and respond to audio stimuli.

Solution two in one: dance
Dance is an ideal activity during pregnancy, as it simultaneously connects a complex body movement and music, and acts on both the baby`s senses simultaneously. It is a complex activity, which is great at stimulating the creation of new synapses. Salsa as a dance with a light movement in several directions and pleasant music is almost ideal for pregnant women.

The mobile phone should not be in the bedroom

Sleep is important
The role of the melatonin hormone, which is emitted from a small gland in the brain, the pineal gland or epiphysis, is very important. Pineal gland is also called the third eye because it possesses photoreceptors. During the day, light as part of the EM spectrum stimulates these epiphysis receptors and thus blocks the secretion of hormone melatonin. The opposite occurs during the night because there is no light. Melatonin induces us into REM (Rapid eye movement) sleep in which we dream intensively. Melatonin also passes through the placenta and enters into the baby`s circulation, who is also induced into REM sleep, in which synapses are most intensively synthesized. This is the reason why pregnant women should sleep in complete darkness, without a TV turned on and without the presence of a mobile phone or any other source of electromagnetic radiation.

You can also sky dive
Pregnant women should be as active as her body allows her to be. She must work exclusively on things that make her happy, because she is the environment that has a direct effect on the unborn baby. We do not overdo it by saying that pregnant woman can do a parachute jump from a plane. It is not out of the question if it makes the woman truly happy, satisfied and confident. All of these feelings will be transmitted directly to her baby in the womb.