Sunday, 21 August 2011

Things You Might Not Know About Babies

By Logan Baxter


You probably aren't aware of just how quickly babies can change and grow. In the beginning an infant is a single celled organism and within a very short time it is a living being with a heart, lungs and a brain. In just forty short weeks they go from those few cells to living creatures who are able to live on their own. Even after birth the changes happen quickly-personalities and decision making seem to happen almost at once. You probably already know a little bit about babies-things like diaper changes and how long it takes babies to begin speaking are pretty common knowledge. Here are some things about infants that you might not yet know.

A baby's skull is not fused together when it is born. The lack of a solid skull is what makes it so scary for so many adults to hold babies right after they are born! This is why that space on the back of a newborn's head is called the soft spot and you need to handle it with care or you could do some serious damage to your baby. About three months after your baby is born its skull plates will have started to fuse together and you won't have to be quite so careful with the soft spot at the back of his or her head. It can take as long as a year and a half for the frontal plates of your baby's skull to harden, so don't assume that the worst is over when the soft spot calcifies together.

This is often the motivation behind a baby's toy preferences. It is kind of a cruel joke that the decorations most parents find hideous because of their garish color schemes are actually the decorations (and toys) that are best for their children's eyesight and brain development!

The vocal range of babies is very impressive; even if it does take them a while to use those vocal cords to make words that adults can understand. It takes a while for an infant's voice box to finish forming, which is why it can make so many amazing sounds so soon! The flexibility of a new voice box is what makes the baby's range better than an adult's range. Babies quickly start to assign the sounds they make to the things that they want or need. This is the way babies teach their parents how to get them what they want-as long as the parents are paying attention they can usually figure it out within a moment or two. Typically, most of a baby's beginning vocabulary will consist of easy vowels and consonants that he can make using only the front of his mouth. It is because of this that a baby's first word is usually "dada" and not "mama": dada is easier to imitate and is almost always a surprise to both the parent and the baby!

Experts agree that too much mercury is terrible for pregnancy but there are some forms of fish that are mercury free and eating them is a good idea. Salmon is a fish that is highly recommended by doctors because it does not contain any mercury and it is full of vitamins and minerals that are good for you and your growing fetus. There are those who say that a woman who eats fish regularly during her pregnancy will give birth to babies with better developed brains and a better capacity for communication than babies carried by women who did not eat fish regularly during their pregnancies. Of course this has yet to be scientifically proven so, if you do not particularly like salmon, don't lose sleep over this.




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