1.All babies are born too early:
Accordingly, some healthworkers assume a baby's
first three months of life as the "fourth trimester" of pregnancy to
emphasize how needy, and yet devoid of social skills, babies are at this stage.
The first social smile, for example, doesn't usually appear until the infant is
10-14 weeks old and the first phase of attachment, scientists suggest, begins
around five months old.
Some evolutionary biologists theorize that newborns
are socially inept – and have an annoying cry – so that parents won't get too
emotionally attached while the baby has an increased likelihood of dying. Of
course, crying also gets a baby the needed attention for survival.
2.Parental responses wire baby's brain:
"As long as there have been babies, there have
been parents, The baby's brain has evolved to use the responses of caregivers
to help it develop. The newborn prefrontal cortex – the brain's so-called
"executive" area – doesn't have much control, so efforts to discipline
or worries about spoiling are pointless at this stage. Instead, newborns are
learning about hunger, loneliness, discomfort and fatigue – and what it feels
like to have these pains relieved. Caregivers can help this process along by
promptly responding to baby's needs, Nurses suggest.
Not that a baby can be kept from crying. In fact,
all babies, no matter how responsive their parents are, have a period of peak
crying around the gestational age of 46 weeks. (Most babies are born between 38
and 42 weeks.)
some early wails are tied to physical development,
noting that across cultures crying peaks at the same point after conception,
independent of when the baby makes its entrance into the world. That is, a
premature baby, born at 34 weeks, will reach her peak crying point at around 12
weeks old, while a full-term baby, born at 40 weeks, will cry the most at
around 6 weeks old.
3.Silly faces and sounds are important:
When babies imitate the facial expressions of their
caregivers, it triggers the emotion in them as well, This helps infants build
on their basic innate understanding of emotional communication and may explain
why parents tend to make exaggerated happy and sad faces at their little ones,
making them easier to imitate. Parentese, or baby talk, is another seemingly
instinctual response that researchers have found is critical to infant
development. Its musicality and exaggerated, slow structure emphasizes critical
components of a language, helping a baby grasp words.
4.Baby's brain grows like evolution on steroids:
When first born, the brains of humans, apes and
Neanderthals are much more similar than they will be by adulthood.
After birth, the human brain grows rapidly, more
than doubling to reach 60 percent of its adult size by the time the baby is sampling
his first birthday cake. By kindergarten, the brain has reached its full size
but it may not finish developing until the kid is in his mid-20s "the
brain never stops changing, for better or worse."
Some scientists speculate that the changes in the developing
infant brain mirror, on a rapid scale, the changes that have been shaped over
period of evolution.
