Newborn behavior

During the first minutes after birth, the newborn lives in a state of alert, it is very awake. You have experienced one of the most important things in your life: birth. The change is radical: it has gone from an aquatic environment to an atmosphere with air (which forces it to breathe), it is cold and there is a lot of light. He keeps his eyes open and calms down with his mother (the only one who is familiar to him).

After the first few minutes awake, comes a calmer period where you mainly sleep and eat. It does not distinguish between day and night and demands attention or food when it needs it.

Baby's senses

It is the moment of the senses: smell, taste, hearing and touch. In the first weeks of life they are very acute, they allow you to obtain a lot of information about the new environment in which you find yourself and act accordingly. The newborn baby recognizes his mother by her voice (he has heard her throughout the pregnancy) and by smell. There is still a long way to go for the baby to speak but the human voice (especially that of mother) interests the baby a lot from birth. He is startled by loud, harsh noises and loves soft, rhythmic sounds, like one.

In the mother-child relationship, smell plays an important role: the baby likes and knows the smell of his mother and that of her; The mother finds the smell of her baby very pleasant, it inspires tenderness and, if she breastfeeds it, the touch and the smell of the baby stimulate the production of milk.

Touch is one of the most pleasant means of communication for the newborn. He loves to be caressed, massaged, and picked up. After birth, the baby is placed on top of its mother's naked torso, in "skin-to-skin" contact, this is the baby's first contact with the world.

Eyesight has to mature and learn to focus, but the newborn sees very contrasting colors or faces placed a foot apart. What he likes the most are the faces and their different expressions.

Primitive reflexes

Despite the fact that the human being does things because he has learned them, in the newborn we observe primitive or archaic reflexes that help the baby to adapt to the environment and to survive; Many of these reflexes will be lost with the growth of the infant and others will become voluntary movements as a result of learning.

These primitive reflexes are explored by him to see if the development is correct:

• Search reflex: turns head and body to the side where it is touched. It is an ability that allows it to find the nipple when it touches its cheek and thus be able to feed.
• Reflection of the Moor: if the action of making him fall backwards is made, the newborn opens his arms and legs and stretches his head back to close them again as if he were giving a hug. You can do the same if you hear a loud noise.
• Suction reflex: the newborn sucks everything that is put in his mouth. It is a fundamental act for food.
• Triple Retract Reflex: Touching the sole of the foot, flex the foot on the leg and the leg on the thigh.
• Palmo-plantar reflex: when light pressure is made on the palms or the soles they close.
• Gait reflex: By holding the baby by the armpits and placing his feet on a flat surface, he moves one foot after the other as if he wanted to walk.
• Cross extension reflex: when the foot is held the other leg flexes and stretches and crosses as if it wanted to move the hand that immobilizes the other foot away.
• Galant reflex or bend of the trunk: the baby avoids by means of the arching of his body the lateral frictions that we make with his back.
• Tonic neck or "swordsman" reflex: when the baby turns his head to one side, he stretches his arm on that same side and bends the opposite side.

• The baby at birth undergoes a radical change: it goes from an aquatic environment to an atmosphere with air.
• In the first weeks of life, the baby has very keen senses to learn.
• The newborn has primitive reflexes that help the baby to adapt to the environment but will be lost with the growth of the infant.