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.

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