Even before they are born, your life begins to revolve around your baby. You appear to be preparing your home and life to accommodate your baby’s requirements. Therefore, it is good to be aware of some fascinating facts about babies. When you first bring your baby home, everything about them both worries and delights you, such as their wailing, smiling, and laughing. In addition to being adorable and innocent, babies have a remarkable blend of talents and abilities. In this post, we acquaint you with several such interesting facts about newborns.
25 Truly Amazing Fun Baby Facts
1. No Kneecaps:
Babies are born without kneecaps. Yes, you read that right. Babies have a structure of cartilage that resembles the kneecaps. These cartilages do not develop until they are fully six months. And that’s the reason most of the babies crawl on the arms instead of all fours. In fact, babies can crawl as soon as they are born. No kidding here! The Karolinska Institute in Sweden found that when the baby was dried and laid on the mother’s chest for feeding, he could find her chest within an hour. And this is what has made breast crawl popular throughout the world as one of the ways to give newborns the best start to life. The WHO and UNICEF recommend all babies (without complications) should have access to immediate skin to skin contact following vaginal or cesarean birth if maternal condition permits so that they may be able to breast crawl.
2. Babies Explore With Their Mouths:
Babies use their sense of touch to explore what is around them, with the most sensitive touch receptors being in and around their mouth. The mouth area is very sensitive, which is why they put everything in their mouth. Babies start reaching for and grabbing objects around the age of 3 to 5 months and this is followed by putting the objects directly in their mouths.
3. New Born Babies Do Not Cry:
Babies howl and scream for what they want or need, but they do not produce tears when they cry. That’s because their tear gland and ducts are not entirely developed until about 2-3 weeks after birth. They do produce enough moisture to keep the eyes healthy and it may leak if the tear duct is blocked, this can happen even when the baby is not crying but they won’t shed proper tears for several weeks. If you feel that your baby’s eyes are often filled with tears, consult a pediatrician. Although it is not usually serious, there are a few exercises the doctor will guide you with to help the excess moisture drain and keep the baby more comfortable. Some kids do not drop their first tear until four or five months. That’s unusual and again a doctor should be consulted if the baby doesn’t shed tears after one month of age.
4. Babies Have 300 Bones:
Unlike adults, babies are born with 300 bones, which is almost 50% more. The bones fuse together during growth that makes it 206. For example, the skull of the baby has several bones that overlap one another during the birth to help the baby squeeze out. Babies also have a very soft spot on the head called the fontanelle. Before the skull grows completely, it is just a squishy and sensitive area.
5. Birthmarks Are Not Exceptions. They Are The Rule:
A birthmark is not an abnormality. In fact, it’s normal, and around 80% babies are born with it. Birthmark comes in a wide range of shapes, color, and sizes, the most common being port wine stains and stork bites. And do you know why birthmarks occur? Different types of birthmarks occur due to different causes. But usually they are caused by extra pigment producing cells or by blood vessels which have not grown normally. Certain birthmarks do not occur until several days or weeks after birth. And dome birthmarks go away after a few years.
6. Newborns Hear, Smell, And See As Good As Us:
A newborn can hear as well as an adult. They startle at just about anything, not because it’s softer or louder, but because it’s new. He can recognize his mother’s voice from just one syllable. It activates an area of the brain associated with language processing. An astonishing fact is that the newborns can recognize their mother’s voice at birth itself. When the baby is born, his hearing power is not 100% up to par as the middle ear is still full of fluid, which somewhat impairs the hearing. The only sound that they can recognize is their mother’s voice. Even the sense of smelling is elevated at this stage. But the eyesight is not very brilliant. Newborn babies are nearsighted. Their vision allows them to see objects and people clearest when they are 8 to 12 inches away. That’s because the brain cannot process information very well at this stage. The brains start processing information at about 8 to 15 inches of range. Their brains contain around 100 billion neurons, which is why they notice everything. It takes a few weeks for the infants to distinguish visually between his/her mother and other adults.
7. The Hair Falls Out:
Your little one may have thick, black hair now, but there is no guarantee that it will stay the same. The hair falls out in the first few weeks and then grows back over the next year. The hair can even go from straight to curly in a few months.
8. Babies Have Numerous Reflexes:
Babies have many known reflexes, which are primitive and due to evolution. A couple of examples are as follows: If you support your child upright with his feet on the flat surface, then his legs will work with a stepping motion. He cannot walk now, but is born with the knowledge of how to walk. And have you noticed that babies startle a lot? That’s your baby’s Moro reflex. It’s a baby’s natural response to the loud noise or a feeling of falling. It makes the child fling his arms up and out, draw his knees up and open his fists wide before going to his original position.
9. Babies Are Sleepy All The Time:
Babies feel sleepy all the time. In the first week of life, babies may sleep for as many as 20 out of 24 hours. A baby’s brain can use up to 60% of the total glucose supply, which can explain why babies need so much sleep. The sleep requirement decreases with age and by one year it almost halves to about 11 hours.
10. Your Baby Becomes Socially Responsive As Early As 6 Weeks:
Babies are capable of their first real smile only when they are about six weeks old. You can try to engage him with funny voices and faces to see if they are ready. If you are unsure about the smile, then you can repeat the gag if required. What about those ultrasounds which claimed to pick up baby smiles? Well these smiles are reflexes and they persist even after birth but the actual social smile is observed only after six weeks of age.
11. Your Baby Knows Your Taste In Music:
According to research conducted by the University of Helsinki, babies recognize the music they hear in the womb for up to four months after the birth. In fact, the song that you used to hear during the pregnancy may even soothe his crankiness. Research has shown that around 18 weeks of pregnancy a baby starts hearing sounds and at 25-26 weeks the hearing organs are quite well developed and they continue to develop as the weeks pass. During the third trimester it has been found that the most clear sounds that the baby can hear inside the womb are of their mother’s voice and they even respond by showing signs of becoming more alert when their mother is speaking.
12. Your Baby Can Influence Your Heart Rate:
An Israeli University found that when a mother and a newborn looked into each other’s eyes, their heart rate coordinated in seconds. A baby’s heart beats around 180 times per minute at birth. It drops to 140 within a few hours. The number drops to 115 beats per minute when they are one-year-old. By adulthood, the resting heart rate is 70 to 80 beats per minute.
13. Your Baby Breathes Thrice As Fast As You:
Babies take more breaths than adults. In fact the breathing rate of a baby is considered abnormally fast only if she takes more than 60 breaths per minute before two months of age while the breathing rate of an adult is between 15 and 20 per minute.
14. A Baby Has Thousands Of Taste Buds:
Babies have more taste buds as compared to adults. The taste bud of the babies shows up in the third trimester, not just on the tongue, but also on the back, roof and sides of the mouth. That is why it is suggested for pregnant mothers to try out different types of foods in the third trimester. These taste buds decrease in number with age.
15. Babies Laugh After 3 Months:
Babies start expressing amusement with vocal effects around 3 months of age. When the baby becomes conscious that her smile is producing a positive response from people around her she will start adding sound effects such as cooing which will turn into giggles and gradually the baby learns to laugh out loud.
16. Baby Cries With Your Accent:
Yes, your baby cries in your accent. A research team from the University of Wurzburg found that babies pick their mother’s native tongue in the last three months of pregnancy. They even reflect the characteristics of their mother tongue in the pattern of their cries after birth. So you can tell the difference between German, French and English babies just by their cries and gurgles.
16. Babies Grow Mustaches In The Womb:
When a baby is around four months old, he grows a mustache that spreads to the entire body over the course of a month. This hair is called lanugo. It falls all before the birth of the child and is eaten by them. The digested hair becomes a part of this first poop. In babies born premature the lanugo hair is visible at birth and is soon shed off.
17. Female Babies Get Their Period:
When the babies are in the womb, they absorb their mother’s hormones. So after the babies are born, they still have some estrogen to sort through. So, many female babies shed their uterine lining, lactate a bit and even have a mini period. In fact whitish vaginal discharge in female babies which is odorless and may be viscous is considered normal in the first 15 days after birth. Sometimes, milk or blood may ooze from the nipples of both male and female babies wrongly called witch’s milk. It may be scary but it is nothing to worry about. Maternal hormones which have crossed the placenta before birth are responsible. As these hormones are metabolized (and the baby’s body doesn’t produce them) this milk will dry up on it’s own usually within two weeks. It is important not to press the baby’s nipples to try to squeeze out this milk as it can lead to infections.
18. Your Baby Can’t Swallow And Breathe At The Same Time:
It is physiologically impossible to swallow and breathe at the same time at any age. When a baby is feeding the processes of sucking, swallowing and breathing are coordinated in such a way that the baby doesn’t aspirate (entry of anything besides air in the lungs) or suffocate (lack of air in the lungs). In fact this mechanism is well-developed in full term babies but in babies born preterm aspiration is a major concern while feeding them.
19. Show And Tell:
Even though babies cannot speak, they can communicate physically by waving, clapping and pointing. Studies have shown that the more physically the babies interact, the better they’ll verbally communicate in future.
20. Your Baby Is Not Born With Self-Awareness:
Babies are not born with the self-awareness that allows them to differentiate their bodies with other people’s bodies. You can tell if your baby is self-aware by drawing a red dot on his or her forehead and standing with him in front of the mirror. If the baby touches the mirror, then he is probably not aware. And if he rubs his own forehead to remove the mark, then he is.
21. Babies Like Mumma’s Voice More:
Babies prefer women’s voices to men’s and like high-pitched singing more than low-pitched voices. You may have noticed that most of the people use higher tones while talking to a baby. You even get a better response from an infant if you use a higher pitched voice.
22. The Eye Color Can Change:
That’s because the color of the eye comes from the melanin secreted by melanocytes in the iris. The amount of melanin secreted depends on multiple factors like genetics and environmental factors like sunlight exposure. Depending on the amount of melanin secreted, the color of the eyes may be blue, green, hazel, brown or black. The baby’s true eye colorbecomes apparent after 6 to 12 months of age.
23. Out Of Proportion Body:
A baby is not born with a proportionate body. The head makes about a quarter of the total body length and the brain makes up the 10% of the total body weight. The rest of the body grows to catch up.
24. Your Baby Looks Like Both Of You:
In the early 90s, studies suggested that newborns looked more like their dads. But the current research suggests that infants tend to resemble both the parents equally.
25. A Newborn Baby Triples Its Weight By Twelve Months:
Between the birth and end of the second year, the infants quadruple in size. As the 6th month sets in, babies double their weight and triples her weight at 12 months. But the rate decreases as the time passes. If babies carried on that rate, the babies would weigh over a thousand pounds by the age of five.
Facts About Babies In The Womb
Here are some unbelievable facts about baby that they will undergo from conception to birth.
