Newborn baby's sense of touch

1、Baby has the sense of touch before birth
Baby's sense of touch is the earliest development, they already have a sense of touch when they are inside the mother's tummy.
When the mother rubs her belly, the baby inside the belly is also feeling, especially in late pregnancy, the baby will be more sensitive to a variety of tactile sensations, this stage of the mother can be more "interactive" with the baby in the belly, can be very good to stimulate the baby's tactile development.

2、Baby needs parents' "love" touch after birth
After babies are born, they continue to explore the world through the sense of touch. One study found that intimate touch can help relieve pain in newborn babies and help them thrive

Researchers have also found that the part of a baby's brain responsible for processing social and emotional information is activated when their legs are gently and slowly stroked.

This is actually why most hospitals in the United States encourage moms and dads to do skin-to-skin after the birth of their babies; the intimate contact between mom and dad and baby's skin can make babies feel safe, relaxed, happy, and blissful.

Of course, babies don't just need touch at birth, they need it throughout their growth. 2015, Sharp and others found that as babies grew older, those who received more touch from their parents tended to show less negative emotions and were more likely to have anxiety and depression. They were also less likely to experience anxiety and depression.

3. Touch can help newborns "see" the surrounding objects.
A newborn baby's vision is not fully developed, so usually they perceive the surrounding objects by touching. An experiment conducted by Arlette Streri found that newborn babies can infer the appearance of objects by touching them.

In this experiment, the researchers gave the infant two distinct forms of items to touch, a cylinder and a triangular prism. The baby could only touch one object at a time, and the shape of the object was not visible to the baby when he touched it.

After the baby touched, the researchers showed the two items to these babies, they found that these babies did not show too much concern for the items that have been touched, , but the items they did not touch put more attention. Therefore, the researchers believe that babies can get visual information through touch.

At the same time, the researchers also did a reverse experiment, if the baby was shown an object first and then allowed to touch it afterwards, they were unable to identify it. In other words, babies cannot convert visual information into tactile information at the beginning.
So when the baby is born, parents can take the baby's hands to touch the objects around, but also let the baby's hands to touch the mother and father's face, although the baby can not fully "see" the object or the face of parents, but they can also be touched in the brain to form visual information.


4、Newborn babies do not perceive through touch alone
Newborn baby is not only through the sense of touch to perceive the world around it? In fact, it is not, especially when it comes to social interaction, the baby will not only through touch, but also through language, eye contact to many aspects of perception.

There was a comparative experiment done in this regard, the newborn babies were divided into two groups, the first group was touched by a silent caregiver without any eye contact, while the second group was touched by the caregiver at the same time, but also to these babies eye contact, gentle speech. It was found that the babies in the first group experienced a sharp increase in stress hormone levels, while the babies in the second group experienced a decrease in stress hormone levels. (White-Traut et al., 2009)

When touching the baby, parents should not just act like a robot, but also with affection, make eye contact with the baby, and speak softly and gently so that the baby can feel happy and satisfied.

Also pay attention to the baby's reaction, if they show obvious "impatience" or discomfort, do not continue to touch, should stop to check if the baby is not comfortable elsewhere.

Newborn baby's vision

Newborn babies have "poor" vision and can't see the world or their parents' faces ...... Is this true?

It is true. The world in the eyes of a newborn baby is a blurred world, their vision will gradually develop as the months grow older, the world seen in the eyes will also change from black and white to color, from black and white to blurred, probably the following motion picture of this look: 

1, the newborn baby can not see the 3D image
Newborn babies are not able to see 3D images, and they will not be able to perceive stereoscopic 3D images until about 16 weeks after birth.

2.Many parents may have heard that "newborn infants are born to view the world in black and white", however it is more fair to state that newborn perceive very few colors in their world, nearly close to the "black and white world."

Just one month old baby, may only be able to distinguish a small number of contrasting colors, such as white and black, white and orange, but for red and green, white and red, red and yellow, are not very clear recognition. However, as babies grow older, their ability to distinguish colors becomes stronger.

3, the newborn baby's eyesight is "poor", but will be interested in moving objects
Compared to normal adults, newborn babies' vision is of course very poor, they can only see some fuzzy shapes, but by about 6 months of age, babies' vision will have made a "qualitative" leap, and they will be able to distinguish clearly between near and distant objects, realize that the world is three-dimensional, and recognize most colors.

Moreover, it has been found that although newborns' vision is not as good, they are particularly interested in moving objects (Valenza et al., 2015); and they can recognize the faces of their caring mothers and fathers as well as those of strangers, and babies are significantly more likely to look at their mothers' and fathers' faces (Bushnell et al., 1989).

Newborn baby's hearing

1、Baby's hearing will start to develop during the fetal period
A baby's sense of hearing also begins to develop when it is in the mother's womb, so the baby will feel particularly familiar with the mother's voice and will even imitate the mother's tone of voice when it cries.

This conclusion is also supported by research. A study on French and German babies found that French babies cried more often with rising intonation, while German babies cried more often with falling intonation, which is similar to the French and German expressions. (Mampe et al., 2009)

2, newborn babies need to learn language in a quiet environment
Babies can't talk yet, but they will pay attention to how their parents communicate, especially if they speak in a slow, repeated tone.

So after the baby is born, mom and dad can talk and chat more with the baby, they can perceive our emotions and learn language through our voice tone.

However, it is important to note that babies cannot recognize the language they are learning in a particularly noisy environment (Erickson and Newman 2018), so it is best for parents to choose a quieter environment to "talk" to their babies.