The newborn's senses

Newborns can feel all different sensations, but respond most enthusiastically to soft stroking, cuddling and caressing. Gentle rocking back and forth often calms a crying infant, as do massages and warm baths. Newborns may comfort themselves by sucking their thumb, or a pacifier. The need to suckle is instinctive (see suction in biology) and allows newborns to feed.

Newborn infants have unremarkable vision, being able to focus on objects only about 18 inches (45 cm) directly in front of their face. While this may not be much, it is all that is needed for the infant to look at the mother’s eyes or areola when breastfeeding. Depth perception does not develop until the infant is mobile. Generally, a newborn cries when wanting to feed. When a newborn is not sleeping, or feeding, or crying, he or she may spend a lot of time staring at random objects. Usually anything that is shiny, has sharp contrasting colors, or has complex patterns will catch an infant's eye. However, the newborn has a preference for looking at other human faces above all else. (see also: infant metaphysics and infant vision)

While still inside the mother, the infant could hear many internal noises, such as the mother's heartbeat, as well as many external noises including human voices, music and most other sounds. Therefore, although a newborn's ears may have some catarrh and fluid, he or she can hear sound from before birth. Newborns usually respond to a female voice over a male voice. This may explain why people will unknowingly raise the pitch of their voice when talking to newborns (this voice change is called motherese). The sound of other human voices, especially the mother's, can have a calming or soothing effect on the newborn. Conversely, loud or sudden noises will startle and scare a newborn. Newborns have been shown to prefer sounds that were a regular feature of their prenatal environment, for example, the theme tune of a television programme that their mother watched regularly.

Newborns can respond to different tastes, including sweet, sour, bitter, and salty substances, with a preference toward sweets. It has been shown that neonates show a preference for the smell of foods that their mother ate regularly.

A newborn has a developed sense of smell at birth, and within the first week of life can already distinguish the differences between the mother's own breast milk and the breast milk of another female

BLUE AND BLACK DADS AND BABIES!!!!

DADDY I LOVE Y(O)UUUUUUUUU!!!!!!!

Studies show that the attitude of the baby's father is the most important factor in whether or not a mother begins and continues to breastfeed.

Dad's instinct is to protect his new family. One way you can do that is by supporting your partner's decision to breastfeed. You can read books about breastfeeding or attend classes on breastfeeding with your partner. You can also help by discouraging others from criticizing your partner's decision to breastfeed, especially in the early weeks.

Dads teach their babies that there is more to love than food, and that there is a world outside of Mommy. Forging your own relationship with your baby will enrich both your lives — and Mom's, too.

Find your own way to have fun with the baby. Take charge of baths, or walk baby around in a soft carrier, or be the one to introduce squeaky toys and rattles. And remember, new babies love to nap on Dad's warm chest.

Don't Put That In Your Mouth!!!!

As any parent can tell you, children are naturally curious and love to put things in their mouths, noses and ears. As a parent it's tough to keep your eyes on your baby at all times. And accidents are sure to happen. So to help out, I've put together a list of common items children have been known to ingest, inhale and insert. In a child's eyes, there are two basic groups of objects in this world:

Group 1: Foods

• Peanuts
• Popcorn
• Seeds
• Hot dogs
• Bones

Group 2: Toys and Small Objects

• Toy parts
• Crayons and pen parts
• Stickers
• Tacks and buttons
• Pins, nails, beads and screws
• Coins

Although this list is not extensive, it includes items I commonly see in the emergency room.

Now that you have a general idea of what children put in their mouths, familiarize yourself with some of the signs that may indicate they've swallowed something they shouldn't have. If your child is choking and can't breathe, it's usually obvious that something is very wrong and a call to 911 should be made immediately. As long as your child can cough, cry or speak, there is no immediate danger.

More commonly, the signs and symptoms that something has been swallowed are more subtle. If you suspect your child has something stuck in his or her esophagus, watch for these signs:

• Pain when swallowing
• Drooling
• Vomiting
• Refusal to eat
• Coughing
• Wheezing

No matter what the symptoms, if you suspect your child has ingested something talk to your pediatrician right away. If the object needs to be removed, it should be done so within 24 hours of ingestion to prevent serious injury.If the item is in the trachea (windpipe) or lungs, it will most likely need to be removed using a special camera designed to examine the lungs. If the item is in the esophagus, depending on what the object is and its position, it may need to be removed with a similar camera device or the doctor may want to watch and wait to see if it will pass on its own.

Kids will also put stuff in their ears, nose and genital areas (mainly girls). The ear is fairly straightforward, but your doctor will want to check and make sure the ear canal and drum haven't been damaged. Less commonly, young girls (prepubescent) may insert foreign objects into their genitalia and can develop vaginal bleeding as a result.

Most aspirations and ingestions occur in children under the age of 4. To prevent such situations, cut up round foods that can easily cause choking, like grapes, vegetables and hot dogs. Avoid sliced foods, which are easier to lodge in the airway. Most choking episodes seem to occur when children are playing or running around while eating, so try to keep children at the table until they finish their meals. Keep an eye on what your child is getting into and avoid having high-risk objects around the house.

CREAM BABIES!!!!!

Newborn Baby:

Regardless of whether labor is long or short, whether it is hard or easy whether a baby is born vaginally or by cesarean, most parents recall the first hours and days after birth as crystal-clear images surrounded by haze.

Despite all the anticipatory parenting done before conception and during pregnancy, despite weeks of feeling movement within and fantasizing about your baby, despite months of having strange dreams, worrisome thoughts, and musings about what kind of parent you will be, the first time you hold your baby in your arms and call yourself mother or father, mama or papa, mommy or daddy, an awareness floods over you that life will never be the same again. Another human being is now dependent upon you for survival. More than anything else, you want to be the best parent possible.Your awareness of your baby's dependency and your desire to be a good parent will together be a great source of energy and a great source of stress. Both are part of being a parent.Becoming a good parent means much more than knowing a lot about babies. Ask pediatric doctors or nurses what it was like for them to be new parents. They will tell you that all their knowledge about babies was not enough to keep them from being over whelmed by their own babies. All new parents feel the same way. All new parents work at knowing, understanding, and loving their babies. Your baby will work just as hard at learning to know, understand, and love you. This is the process of attachment-the work that parents and babies do together to form a deep and lasting love. It is what becoming a family is all about.

This book is written to give you some help as you make the transition from pregnancy to parenting. It offers ideas on things you can do to make this time of change easier. It is written as much to encourage as to teach you. Besides providing the information you need about taking care of yourself and your baby, it can help build your confidence in your own wisdom about your family's needs. You will find the postpartum period easier if you know what to expect during this time, if you actively participate in health-care decisions, and if you build a network of support that nurtures your growing family.

New families in the United States face some challenges that families in most other countries do not. In the United States, where nearly 99 percent of women give birth in hospitals, the average hospital stay after childbirth is two days for a woman who has given birth vaginally, three to four days for a woman who has given birth by cesarean. In many communities, new families are discharged from the hospital within twenty-four hours of birth. Such early discharge will probably become the norm by the year 2000.

In most other countries, both industrialized and developing, the postpartum period is seen as being at least as important as the prenatal period. Because of this, women giving birth in hospitals have longer stays. More importantly, services are brought to the homes of new families. No matter how long the stay in a hospital or birth center, the family's transition to home-and to sole responsibility for the newborn-is overwhelming. in many countries all new families are visited at home by midwives, nurses, or other trained personnel who teach parenting skills, assess the mother's and baby's health, and provide moral support (and sometimes, as in the Netherlands, government-paid helpers do the housekeeping!).

The day after birth, you may ache all over from the work you did in labor. Your arms and legs may be sore from pulling back on your legs while pushing out the baby.

Although achy legs are normal, tenderness, pain, or warmth in your calves and swollen or reddened veins are warning signs that you should report to your doctor or midwife immediately. These signs could indicate thrombophlehitis, an inflammation of a vein that can result in formation of a blood clot. Postpartum women are at slightly increased risk of this because the vein walls normally relax somewhat in pregnancy. To reduce the risk of thrombophlebitis, increase circulation in your legs by doing foot rotations (see page 2 1) and by getting up and walking soon after birth. Thrombophlebitis is treated with bed rest, elevation of the affected leg, hot packs, and the use of elastic stockings. Medications may also be needed to prevent infection and clot formation. The affected leg should not be massaged.

Joints that relaxed in pregnancy to allow for the baby's growth and birth will return to their pre-pregnancy condition within several weeks of birth. Many women, however, feel that the rib cage and pelvis remain slightly expanded for the rest of their lives.

Abdominal muscles are relaxed after birth, so the abdomen is soft and still rounded. All women have some degree of separation of the abdominal muscles, which lessens with exercise.

Any stretch marks you have will seem more obvious after birth than before. Although stretch marks never completely disappear, they fade to silvery white lines in the months after childbirth. Darkened areas of the skin, such as the areola and the linea nigra, a dark line from the belly button to pubic bone, may tighten but may not completely fade.

Many women note changes in their hair after birth-most commonly, profuse hair loss. This is because pregnancy hormones stimulate hair growth. With the drop in these hormones, the extra hair that grew in pregnancy will fall out. This begins around three months after birth and usually ends within a couple of months.

Perhaps the most common feeling of new mothers after childbirth is that of being bone-tired. This seems especially true of women who have just had their first babies. Often, fatigue is combined with such excitement in the first days that sleep is difficult. The usual aches and pains of the early postpartum period can make it even harder to sleep. But beyond the first few days after birth, most women find daily naps are essential to their well-being.