A baby's first heartbeat is just 16 days after conception:

[Valin]

UK Daily Mail:

Mark Prigg

11 October 2016

 

A baby's first heartbeat happens as early as 16 days after conception, a new study has discovered. Until now, researchers thought that the first time our heart muscle contracted to beat was at 8 days after conception in mice which equates to around day 21 of a human pregnancy. Now, a team funded by the British Heart Foundation (BHF) at the University of Oxford have found it is far earlier.

 

'We are trying to better understand how the heart develops, and ultimately what causes the heart defects that develop in the womb before birth and to extrapolate to adult heart repair, said BHF Professor Paul Riley, who led the research at the University of Oxford. 'By finding out how the heart first starts to beat and how problems can arise in heart development, we are one step closer to being able to prevent heart conditions from arising during pregnancy.

 

(Snip)

 

They have demonstrated earlier beating of the heart in mouse embryos which, if extrapolated to the human heart, suggests beating as early as 16 days after conception. In the study, published today in the scientific journal eLife, researchers studied the developing mouse heart and found that the muscle started to contract as soon as it formed the cardiac crescent – an early stage in heart development. In mice, this crescent forms 7.5 days after conception, which is equivalent to day 16 in the human embryo.

 

(Snip)

 

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H/T Right Scoop