Facts About Babies And Birth
Newborn babies are not blind. Studies have shown that newborns have approximately 20/50 vision and can easily discriminate between degrees of brightness.
A fetus in the womb can hear. Tests have shown that fetuses respond to various sounds just as vigorously as they respond to pressures and internal sensations.
A survey conducted at Iowa State College in 1969 suggests that a parent's stress at the time of conception plays a major role in determining a baby's sex. The child tends to be of the same sex as the parent who is under less stress.
Statistics based on more than a half-million births occurring in New York City hospitals between 1948 and 1957 show a significantly greater number of births taking place during the waning moon than during the waxing moon.
Until the 1920's, babies in Finland were delivered in saunas. The heat was thought to help combat infection, and the warm atmosphere was considered pleasing to the infant.
Children born in the month of May are on the average 200 grams heavier at birth than children born in any other month.
Up to the age of six or seven months a child can breathe and swallow at the same time. An adult cannot do this (try it.)
Midgets and dwarfs almost always have normal-sized children, even if both parents are midgets or dwarfs.
Twins are born less frequently in the eastern part of the world than in the western.
In medieval China it was not unusual for a mother to breastfeed a child until the child was seven years old.
A newborn baby's head accounts for about one quarter of its entire weight.
It is possible for a fetus in the womb to get hiccups.
There are recorded cases of babies that have been delivered through the rectum. In rare instances, blockage of the mother's vaginal orifice may force an unborn child into the rectal area and the baby must be expelled through the anus. A nineteenth-century British doctor named Payne cited the case of a thirty-three-year-old woman who gave birth in this manner. Dr. Payne, seeing that the child was located near the rectum, anesthetized the mother and delivered the child by forceps with little hemorrhage and an easy removal of the placenta.
It is believed that 30 to 50 percent more male fetuses than female fetuses are conceived, yet only 5 to 6 percent more males are born. Prenatal (as well as infant) deaths are much higher among males than females.