Physical Development

What my Baby Looks Like After Birth

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Published February 25th 2010, in Baby Years, Development, Physical Development

The neonatal phase is the period that stretches from directly after birth and encompasses the first two to four weeks in the life of the child.

Contrary to most parents’ descriptions, newborns are not exactly pretty – they have a swollen bluish and reddish face, a broad flat nose, swollen eyelids and ears that seem somewhat misplaced.  Sometimes the shape of the face is misshapened due to the long path down the birth channel.  The little body is covered in a white substance, vernix caseosa, which protects the baby from infection and dries off in a few days. Some babies are still covered in fine hair, lanugo, which falls out during the first month. Newborns exhibit prominent external sex organs and both sexes’ nipples are swollen due to high amounts of estrogen in the mother’s blood before giving birth.

In addition to these features, the body proportions of newborns differ substantially from the proportion of an adult body.
The head makes up one fourth of the total body in contrast with the eighth of an adult’s. The neck muscles are not able to keep the head up at this point in time.

The average weight of a newborn varies between 2.5 and 4.5kg, with most weighing between 3 and 3.5kg.  Girls tend to weigh less than boys at birth and firstborns tend to be lighter than siblings.

Most parents experience that their infants lose up to 10% of their body weight in the first couple of days in hospital, but will regain it with a week or two once feeding is established. Boys tend to be taller than their counterparts, with the average length being around 45 to 56cm. A newborn baby’s heartbeat varies between 120 and 150 beats per minute, going up when stressed and down when resting.

The apgar-scale is used to evaluate an infant at birth.  This evaluation gets done twice – one minute after birth and again 5 minutes after birth.
A:     Appearance (Colour)
G:    Grimace (Reflex irritability)
P:    Pulse (Heartbeat)
A:    Activity (Muscle tone)
R:    Respiration (Breathing)

Each of these aspects gets scored as zero, one or two, with zero being the worst score and two the best score. The scores get combined with a maximum score of ten.  Most babies score 7 or more.  A score of 4 is indicative of further evaluation and treatment.

Milestones for Babies

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Published February 25th 2010, in Baby Years, Development, Physical Development

The neonatal phase and baby years are the first two years in a child’s life. It is a period of rapid change physically and psychologically.  The child moves from being completely dependent to becoming more independent.  During this stage a child forms bonds with significant people in their lives – the nature of these relationships have a lasting effect on future social relationships.  During this phase the uniqueness of the individual becomes apparent. Through socialization the child learns that certain actions are acceptable while others are not allowed.

In the first two years of a child’s life he has to master certain tasks:

  1. He learns to walk.
  2. He learns to ingest solid food.
  3. He learns the basics of communication through language.
  4. He starts to learn to use the toilet.
  5. He falls into a routine of sleep, eat and interacting.
  6. He develops an emotional communication with his parents and siblings.

The degree of success attained depends largely on the opportunities the child gets and the help and direction the child receives from significant others.

How Toddlers Grow

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Published February 24th 2010, in Development, Physical Development, Toddler Years

After witnessing the amazing growth of your baby his first year, you enter a phase of slower growth combined with lots of energy.  This is the recipe for the terrible two’s where children have immense willpower, but have not reached the physical maturity to master everything they want to do.  Toddlers experience great frustration when they cannot execute their plans.

In addition to your one year old growing slower, you will notice that he eats less at mealtimes, but like to snack through out the day. Toddlers are very mobile and explore their environment through all five senses.

During the second year most toddlers will master the following milestones:

  • Walk independently without support.
  • Be able to walk backwards.
  • Climb step.
  • Start to feed themselves.
  • Drink from a cup when helped.
  • Build a tower with blocks.
  • Scribble with a pen.

As they become more confident in their own abilities they start to become even more daring, testing parents’ nerves to the limit.  From age 2 to 3  children should generally accomplish the following:

  • Walk confidently
  • Run
  • Climb stairs
  • Dig
  • Throw and kick a ball
  • Jump with two feet together
  • Take things apart and reassemble it
  • Screw and unscrew lids
  • Become aware of toilet habits.

Mastering one milestone enables your child to move on to the following learning experience.  It should be kept in mind that children are unique and achieve milestones in their own time, we cannot rush growing up.