How are new born babies

Upon entry into the air-breathing world, without the nutrition and oxygenation via the umbilical cord, the newborn baby must begin to adjust to life outside the uterus. Newborn baby can feel all different sensations, but respond most enthusiastically to soft stroking, cuddling and caressing. Gentle rocking back and forth often calms a crying infant, as do massages and warm

baths. Newborns can be comforted by nursing, or may need to comfort themselves by sucking their thumb, or a pacifier. The need to suckle is instinctive and allows newborns to feed. Newborn baby have unremarkable vision, being able to focus on objects only about 18 inches (45 cm) directly in front of their face. While this may not be much, it is all that is needed for the infant to look at the mother’s eyes or areola when breastfeeding. Depth perception does not develop until the infant is mobile. Generally, a newborn cries when wanting to feed. When a newborn is not sleeping, or feeding, or crying, he or she may spend a lot of time staring at various objects. Usually anything that is shiny, has sharp contrasting colors, or has complex patterns will catch an infant's eye. However, the newborn has a preference for looking at other human faces above all else.

In utero, the infant can hear many internal noises, such as the sound of digestion, and the mother's heartbeat, in addition to external noises including the human voice, music and most other sounds. Therefore, though a newborn's ears may have some catarrh and fluid, he or she can hear sound from before birth. Newborns usually respond more readily to a female voice over a male voice. This may explain why people will unknowingly raise the pitch of their voice when talking to newborns (this voice change is called motherese). The sound of other human voices, especially the mother's, can have a calming or soothing effect on the newborn. Conversely, loud or sudden noises will startle and scare them. Newborns have been shown to prefer sounds that were a regular feature of their prenatal environment, for example, the theme tune of a television programmer their mother watched regularly. Naturally, the rhythm of the mother's breathing and heartbeat are even more familiar to the newborn, therefore they will prefer or expect to hear it regularly for prolonged periods.

Newborns can respond to differing tastes, including sweet, sour, bitter, and salty substances, with a preference toward sweetness. It has been shown that neonates show a preference for the smell of foods that their mother ate regularly, since the amniotic fluid changes taste with different foods eaten by the mother – as does breast milk. Studies have shown that infants who have been the recipients of positive touch experience more benefits as they develop emotionally and socially. Experiments have been done with infants up to four months of age using both positive touch (stroking or cuddling) and negative touch (poking, pinching or tickling). The infants who received the positive touch cried less often and also vocalized and smiled more than the infants who were touched negatively.

Infants who were the recipients of negative touching have been linked with emotional and behavioral problems later in life. A lower amount of physical violence in adults has been discovered in cultures with greater levels of positive physical touching.


Here is a nice video about a new born baby. watch the video by clicking here if you really need.

Human infants have a primal need to be carried close to their mother's body. They need constant physical contact for their first few weeks or months of life. They are born with reflexes that aid them in holding onto their mother's body in every way possible, these being the Moro reflex, and the instinctive grasping of a finger or object placed in their palm. Their legs usually resume an M shape, their knees being the top peaks of the M, which is the ideal position both for optimal hip development, and makes it comfortable for an adult to carry them laid on their chest. They also need frequent care, given that they need to eat and eliminate waste more often than other mammalian offspring that are cared for in nests where they could endanger themselves by crying with hunger and the smell of their excrement.
Source - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infant