A woman reading a book to a mother and child. (Stanford Medicine via SWNS)

By Stephen Beech

Moms reading " Paddington Bear " to premature babies helps them to thrive, reveals new research.

Hearing the sound of their mother’s voice promotes the development of language pathways in the brains of tots born at least three weeks early, say American scientists.

During the study, hospitalized premature babies regularly heard recordings of their mom reading a chapter of Michael Bond's popular book " Paddington Bear " to them.

MRI brain scans at the end of the study showed that a key language pathway was more mature than that of premature babies in a control group who did not hear the recordings.

Scientists say their research, published by the journal Frontiers in Human Neuro s cience

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