10 little-known facts about babies
A baby who has recently been born is surrounded by the love of adult family members and their care, he cannot do without it. Some parents believe that tender affection and affection is enough for a child to develop correctly and be happy, but this is not so. It is important to know the specifics of caring for an infant, possible problems, and understand the reasons for his behavior. Only "sighted" love will provide the child with everything he needs.
Today we will tell readers about some of the little-known features of newborns.
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The mother's nationality can be determined by the crying of a baby
It has long been known that the fetus in the womb perceives everything that happens in the surrounding world. It is not for nothing that pregnant women are advised to listen to quiet classical music, birdsong, rustle of leaves and murmur of water. These sounds relieve stress and help calm not only the expectant mother, but also her baby.
From the first days of pregnancy, a woman should speak affectionately with the unborn child, creating and strengthening an emotional connection with him. A child who, during the period of gestation, constantly heard the mother's voice addressed to him, in the future behaves calmer, sleeps better, eats and develops. In addition, scientists noticed an interesting fact: the nature of the cry of a newborn depends on the language group to which his mother belongs. In the sounds that babies make, you can hear an imitation of some of the features of the language of their parents. A baby born to a Russian mother does not cry exactly like a child of an Englishwoman or a Frenchwoman.
Starting to explore the world, the child uses taste and smell
The amount of information a newborn needs to learn is enormous. During the first year, he learns more about the world around him than in his entire subsequent life. The kid is constantly learning, but in the beginning, not all of his senses function equally well.
Knowledge of the world begins with the help of smell. Already in the first minutes of life, the baby, laid on the mother's belly, reaches for her nipple. The fact is that colostrum secreted by the mammary glands smells very much like the amniotic fluid in which the fetus is being carried. This is a natural mechanism designed to draw the child's attention to the food source as soon as possible.
A child is not able to fully use the sense of touch until 7 months. But in the cavity of his mouth there are many nerve endings with which you can successfully study objects. That is why babies pull in their mouths and lick everything.
Babies smile more often than adults
The reasons for this phenomenon are unknown, but newborns are indeed very smiling. A kid under six months of age smiles about 200 times a day. Over time, the situation changes: for comparison, an adult woman smiles on average 62 times a day, and a man only 8 times.
Most babies have the innate ability to dive and swim
95% of babies have an innate swimming reflex, which lasts for almost six months. When the baby is immersed in water, its heart rate decreases by 20%, and the speed of peripheral blood flow decreases. This is how the body stores oxygen to supply the heart and brain. Newborns are able to reflexively hold their breath when diving.
Maternal and fetal organisms exchange cells
Sometimes in the body of women who have recently given birth to sons, Y chromosomes are found. This fact allows scientists to argue that fetal cells can enter the mother's body and remain in it for some time.
In addition, experts believe that the fetus can "share" stem cells with the mother if her vital organs are disrupted. This is how the cases of sudden cures of pregnant women from heart and kidney diseases, as well as from other severe pathologies, are explained.
The baby has an innate grasping reflex
The so-called palmar reflex begins to develop in the fetus at the 16th week of intrauterine life. By the time the child is born, the ability to firmly grip objects with handles is fully formed. Moreover, the grip is so strong that the baby's hands can support the weight of the body. However, you should not experiment with this: the child may suddenly open his fingers.
The grasping reflex has long been considered a purely atavistic phenomenon associated with the ability of baby monkeys to hold tightly to their mothers' fur while carrying them. Today, scientists believe that this skill is not only inherited by humans from animal ancestors, but also plays an important role in the development of touch and sensory study of objects.
Children are born with black and white vision
The features of a newborn's vision are due to the weakness of the muscles responsible for changing the curvature of the lens, and the incomplete development of neural connections connecting the optic nerves with the corresponding area of the cerebral cortex.
The first visual impressions will be indistinct: the child sees the image upside down, the contours of objects are slightly blurred, does not distinguish colors, perceiving them as more or less dark. In addition, he can only see motionless objects that are right in front of his eyes at a distance of 20-30 cm from his face.
As the child grows, his vision also "matures". By the age of 2 months, the baby is already able to see moving objects with his eyes, the picture becomes three-dimensional. Color perception is also formed gradually: at first, children begin to distinguish red, and by 3 months they see the world in all colors of the spectrum.
The smallest do not dream
Dreams appear in babies after reaching the age of 3 years, and they are very different from what adults see: children do not observe themselves in a dream. But for babies, night visions are very emotional and fantastic. They often contain the most incredible fairy-tale heroes, monsters, non-existent representatives of the fauna, revived objects.
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During intrauterine development, the baby's face and body are covered with hair
Hair follicles begin to function in the fetus at the 12th week of intrauterine development. They grow soft, colorless hairs that cover the entire surface of the body and face. This hair growth is called lanugo. It performs a very important function: it keeps the original lubricant on the skin - a substance that has a wax-like consistency and protects the baby's body from harmful external agents.
By the 28th week of gestation, lanugo reaches its maximum development, but by the time of birth it almost completely disappears. In full-term newborns, it is normal to have a small cannon on the back. In the first weeks of a baby's life, these hairs fall out. Premature babies are sometimes born with thick hairiness over the entire surface of the body.
The brain of a newborn uses about half of the body's glucose stores
It is known that the adult brain uses about 20% of the glucose entering the body. In a newborn, this parameter is 2.5 times higher: the body spends almost half of the main biological "fuel" on the central nervous system. That is why young children sleep so much: during sleep, the blood supply to the brain increases, and the body may not expend energy on muscle activity.
Not everything is known about the peculiarities of the life of newborns; scientists still expect a lot of discoveries in this area. It is useful for parents to get acquainted with the latest information: the more they know about their babies, the better they will be able to take care of their health and proper development.
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Maria Kulkes Medical journalist About the author
Education: First Moscow State Medical University named after I. M. Sechenov, specialty "General Medicine".
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