116 Fun Facts About Baby

How many teeth make up a full set of baby teeth?

A full set of primary teeth is 20: five in each quadrant, ten per jaw. Adults end up with 32 permanent teeth.

Which of a baby's first set of teeth usually erupt first?

The lower front incisors (lower central incisors) usually erupt first, at about 6 to 10 months; the upper second molars come last, near age two and a half.

Which of these animals does NOT get just one set of baby teeth followed by adult teeth?

Elephants, kangaroos and manatees are polyphyodonts, replacing teeth throughout life.

Around what age does teething typically begin?

Six months is typical, and teething continues on and off until roughly two and a half years.

Do erupting teeth actually cut through a baby's gums?

No, gum cells die and separate: the tissue over an erupting tooth thins as its cells break down, opening a channel the crown rises through rather than cutting.

What is the informal name for the membranous gap in a baby's skull?

'Soft spot' is the everyday name for a fontanelle, a membrane-covered gap between a newborn's skull bones that lets the head flex during birth and the brain grow.

What shape is the anterior fontanelle at the top front of a baby's head?

The anterior fontanelle is diamond-shaped, sitting where the two frontal and two parietal bones meet; the smaller posterior fontanelle at the back is triangular.

The anterior fontanelle usually closes by what age?

The anterior fontanelle usually closes between 9 and 18 months, while the posterior fontanelle ossifies within six to eight weeks of birth.

The word 'infant' comes from a Latin word meaning what?

'Infant' comes from Latin infans, 'unspeaking' (in- 'not' + fari 'to speak'); Romans applied it to children too young to talk.

In medicine, a newborn is a 'neonate' for how many days after birth?

A newborn is a neonate for the first 28 days of life, whether born premature, full term or late; after that the child is an infant.

Babies born before how many weeks of gestation are called premature?

Preterm means birth before 37 completed weeks of gestation; 39 to 40 weeks is full term, and 42 weeks or beyond is post term.

What is the average birth weight of a full-term newborn in developed countries?

The average is about 3.4 kg, roughly seven and a half pounds; most full-term newborns fall between about 6 and 10 pounds, and boys average slightly heavier than girls.

What usually happens to a newborn's weight in the first week?

It drops by 3-7%: newborns shed extra body fluid and pass meconium while feeding takes a few days to get going; most regain their birth weight by two weeks.

What colour is a newborn's skin often in the moments right after birth?

Newborns often look grayish to dusky blue because their blood is not yet fully oxygenated; they turn pink within a minute or two of the first breaths, though hands and feet may stay bluish for hours.

What is the normal head circumference of a full-term newborn?

A full-term newborn's head measures about 33-36 cm around, averaging near 35 cm; the head is very large in proportion to the body and the cranium huge relative to the face.

Once a baby learns to walk, what is it usually called instead?

A toddler, from 'toddle', the unsteady walk of a one- or two-year-old; the stage runs from about 12 months to age three.

What is the name of the instinctive behaviour by which a newborn seeks out the nipple?

The rooting reflex: stroke a newborn's cheek and it turns toward the touch with an open mouth; it fades by about four months, while the sucking reflex does the actual feeding.

What is the name for the waxy white coating on a newborn's skin?

The Latin means, roughly, cheesy varnish.

In the Latin name of a newborn's white skin coating, what does 'caseosa' mean?

Caseosa means cheesy, from Latin caseus (cheese), describing the coating's texture; vernix means varnish, so vernix caseosa is literally a 'cheesy varnish'.

The waxy coating on a newborn's skin is mostly made of what?

About 80% water, with lipids and proteins making up 10% each.

What is the fine, soft hair sometimes covering a newborn's body called?

Lanugo is the fine, soft hair that covers the fetus from about the fifth month; most of it sheds before birth and is swallowed along with the amniotic fluid.

The name of the fine hair on a fetus comes from the Latin for what?

Lanugo comes from Latin lana, 'wool' (lanugo meant woolly down); the finer hair that replaces it after birth is called vellus.

What is a newborn's very first stool called?

Meconium is the first stool, formed from swallowed amniotic fluid, lanugo, mucus and bile; sticky like tar and almost odourless, it is usually passed within the first day or two.

What colour is a newborn's first stool usually?

Meconium is very dark olive green, almost black, because bile pigments rather than digested milk colour it; stools turn yellow over the first week as milk takes over.

What is the thick early milk produced in the first days after birth called?

Colostrum is the thick, yellowish milk of the first few days, packed with antibodies and protein; foremilk and hindmilk describe the thinner and richer phases of a later feed.

What traditional English word names a cow's first milk after calving?

Beestings (also beastings or biestings), from Old English beost; dairy farmers prize it because a calf gets its antibodies only from this first milk, not through the placenta.

How soon after birth does the WHO recommend that breastfeeding begin?

WHO recommends starting breastfeeding within the first hour of birth; early skin-to-skin contact and a first feed of colostrum help the baby's temperature, feeding and immunity.

Which antibody class dominates in human breast milk?

Secretory IgA is the main antibody in breast milk, richest in colostrum; it coats the baby's gut and airways to block microbes, whereas IgG is the main antibody in blood and crosses the placenta.

Which hormone is the main driver of milk production?

Prolactin, from the pituitary, drives milk synthesis; progesterone suppresses its effect during pregnancy, so milk comes in only after the placenta is delivered, while oxytocin handles let-down.

A woman who breastfeeds another person's child is called what?

A wet nurse's charges who were fed together are sometimes called milk-siblings.

Which mythical Roman twins were famously nursed by a she-wolf?

Romulus and Remus, the legendary founders of Rome, were suckled by a she-wolf after being abandoned on the Tiber; the bronze Capitoline Wolf depicts the scene.

Which chemist developed the first commercial infant formula, in 1865?

Justus von Liebig's Soluble Food for Babies, a mix of cow's milk, wheat and malt flour and potassium bicarbonate, went on sale in 1865 and quickly spawned rivals, including Henri Nestlé's Farine Lactée in 1867.

Which company was the target of a famous 1977 boycott over formula marketing?

It led to the International Code of Marketing of Breast-milk Substitutes.

What is the gradual move from milk to solid food called?

Weaning is the gradual shift from breast milk or formula to solid foods, usually begun with purées or soft finger foods; the word comes from Old English wenian, 'to accustom'.

In which US state was Gerber founded, in 1927?

Gerber began in Fremont, Michigan, where Dan Gerber's family ran the Fremont Canning Company; his wife Dorothy's hand-strained food for their daughter inspired the baby-food line launched in 1928.

What is the term for a baby positioned bottom- or feet-first before birth?

Breech presentation means the buttocks or feet lead instead of the head; it occurs in about 3-4% of term pregnancies, and most such babies are now delivered by caesarean.

Who was the real baby behind the Gerber Baby sketch?

Ann Turner Cook, sketched as a baby in 1928 by her neighbour Dorothy Hope Smith, grew up to be an English teacher and mystery novelist; for decades people guessed the baby was a movie star.

How was the Gerber Baby image chosen in 1928?

Gerber ran a company contest in 1928 for a face to advertise its new strained foods; an unfinished charcoal sketch beat finished paintings and became the registered trademark in 1931.

The Apgar score checks a newborn at one and five minutes on how many criteria?

Appearance, pulse, grimace, activity and respiration, each scored 0 to 2.

Who invented the Apgar score in 1952?

Virginia Apgar, an anesthesiologist at Columbia University, devised the score in 1952; the criteria list (Appearance, Pulse, Grimace, Activity, Respiration) is a backronym of her surname coined a decade later.

Which Apgar score is generally regarded as normal?

Seven and above is normal, four to six fairly low, and three and below critically low; a perfect ten is uncommon because most newborns are briefly a little blue.

Which infant response makes a baby fling its arms out after a sudden loss of support?

The Moro (startle) reflex: the baby flings its arms out, then draws them in, often crying; present at birth in healthy full-term newborns, it fades by four to six months.

How did Ernst Moro originally trigger the reflex named after him?

Today it is usually elicited by a supported head drop.

Which part of the brain suppresses primitive newborn reflexes as a child grows?

The frontal lobes: as they mature they inhibit primitive reflexes such as grasp and rooting, which is why these 'frontal release signs' can reappear in adults with dementia or frontal-lobe strokes.

Which psychologist first studied object permanence in infants?

Jean Piaget coined 'object permanence' in the 1930s, hiding a toy under a blanket to see whether the baby searched for it; he thought the skill emerged late in the first year.

Piaget's 'sensorimotor stage' lasts from birth to roughly what age?

Piaget's sensorimotor stage runs from birth to about two years, when the preoperational stage begins; by its end, he argued, babies grasp that hidden objects continue to exist.

Around what age do babies typically say their first recognisable words?

12 months is typical; babbling winds down at about the same age, though it can carry on for a while.

What kind of babbling is 'da da da'?

Reduplicated (canonical) babbling repeats the same consonant-vowel syllable, typically from six to ten months; variegated babbling, which follows, mixes different consonants and vowels.

The sing-song way adults talk to babies is formally called what?

Child-directed speech (also infant-directed speech, 'parentese' or motherese) uses higher and wider pitch, slower tempo and shorter utterances than adult talk, and babies attend to it more.

How many hours a day do newborns sleep on average in the first two weeks?

Newborns sleep about 16-18 hours a day in their first weeks, in stretches of two to four hours; by four months the average is nearer 14 hours, naps included.

What is the most effective single way to reduce the risk of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) in a baby under one?

Laying it on its back to sleep: after 'Back to Sleep' campaigns began in the early 1990s, SIDS rates fell by about half in the US and by up to 80% in some countries.

SIDS is also known by which informal name?

Cot death (crib death in the US) is the everyday name for SIDS, the sudden, unexplained death of an apparently healthy baby under one year old, usually during sleep.

Do baby monitors prevent SIDS?

No evidence they do: the American Academy of Pediatrics advises against using home cardiorespiratory monitors as a SIDS strategy, warning they can give parents a false sense of security.

What was the first baby monitor, released in 1937?

The Zenith Radio Nurse, designed by sculptor Isamu Noguchi for Zenith Radio Corporation, went on sale in 1937; its 'Guardian Ear' transmitter sat beside the crib.

At what age does normal infant crying peak?

Crying peaks at about six weeks, when babies average a little over two hours a day; it then declines steadily to roughly an hour a day by three months.

Roughly what share of full-term newborns get jaundice in their first week?

About 60% of full-term newborns, and about 80% of preterm babies, develop visible jaundice in the first week because their livers clear the yellow pigment bilirubin slowly.

The discovery that light treats newborn jaundice is credited to whom?

Sister Jean Ward, an English nurse at Rochford General Hospital in Essex, noticed in 1956 that jaundiced babies left in the sunshine grew paler; Richard Cremer's team confirmed phototherapy in 1958.

Which disorder was the first target of newborn heel-prick screening?

Phenylketonuria (PKU): Robert Guthrie's 1963 bacterial-inhibition test on a dried filter-paper blood spot became the first mass newborn screen, and the heel-prick card bears his name.

Newborns are routinely given a shot of which nutrient to prevent bleeding disorders?

Vitamin K: babies are born with low stores, breast milk contains little and their gut bacteria have not yet begun making it, so one injection at birth prevents vitamin K deficiency bleeding.

How many blood vessels does a normal human umbilical cord contain?

Two arteries and one vein, cushioned in Wharton's jelly.

Leaving the placenta attached until the cord separates on its own is called what?

Lotus birth, or umbilical nonseverance, leaves the placenta attached until the cord dries and drops off on its own after several days; the UK's Royal College of Obstetricians has warned of infection risk.

What is the gelatinous substance protecting the vessels inside the umbilical cord called?

Wharton's jelly, named after English anatomist Thomas Wharton (1656), is a mucous connective tissue rich in mucopolysaccharides such as hyaluronic acid that cushions the cord's vessels against compression.

Identical twins develop from how many fertilised eggs?

One: identical (monozygotic) twins come from a single fertilised egg that splits, while fraternal twins come from two eggs, each fertilised by its own sperm.

Which people have the highest rate of twinning in the world?

The Yoruba of south-west Nigeria: the town of Igbo-Ora records roughly 45 twin births per 1,000, against about 12 in Europe; one theory credits a local yam rich in phytoestrogens.

By how much did the US twin birth rate rise between 1980 and 2009?

76%: the CDC reported the US twin birth rate rising from 18.9 per 1,000 births in 1980 to 33.3 in 2009, driven by fertility treatments and older mothers.

Identical twins that split after how many days of development are likely to be conjoined?

14: splits in the first few days give separate placentas, later splits share a placenta, and a split after day 13-14, once the embryonic disc has formed, is incomplete and the twins are conjoined.

Which type of twinning has no known genetic link?

Monozygotic (identical) twinning appears to happen at random, at a fairly constant rate worldwide; a family history of fraternal twins does raise the odds, via an inherited tendency to release two eggs.

What is the term for a baby born from a pregnancy with only one fetus?

A singleton is a baby from a pregnancy with a single fetus, as opposed to twins or higher multiples; in the US roughly 96-97% of babies born are singletons.

What is the word for eight babies born from one pregnancy?

Octuplets, from Latin octo (eight), follow septuplets (seven) and precede nonuplets (nine); sets of eight are extraordinarily rare and almost always follow fertility treatment.

The first quintuplets known to survive infancy were born in which country in 1934?

Canada's Dionne quintuplets were identical girls, the first quintuplets known to survive infancy.

The McCaughey septuplets, the first to survive infancy, were born in 1997 in which state?

Iowa: Bobbi and Kenny McCaughey's seven babies were born in Des Moines on 19 November 1997, the first complete set of septuplets known to survive infancy.

The Cissé nonuplets, born alive in 2021, were delivered in which country?

Morocco: Halima Cissé, a 25-year-old from Mali, was flown to a Casablanca clinic, where the five girls and four boys were delivered by caesarean on 4 May 2021.

Nadya Suleman, nicknamed 'Octomom', gave birth to eight surviving babies in which year?

2009: the eight were delivered by caesarean in Bellflower, California, on 26 January 2009, the first known full set of octuplets to survive; all were conceived through IVF, as were her six older children.

Roughly how often do quintuplets occur naturally?

About 1 in 55 million births: Hellin's rule of thumb divides the odds by roughly 89 for each extra baby (twins 1 in 89, triplets about 1 in 8,000, quadruplets about 1 in 700,000).

Roughly how many human babies were born worldwide in 2023?

About 132 million, roughly 360,000 a day; the global total has stayed between about 130 and 140 million a year for decades as falling birth rates offset population growth.

Delivery of the placenta is which stage of labour?

The third stage of labour runs from the baby's birth to delivery of the placenta, usually within 30 minutes; the first stage is cervical dilation and the second is pushing out the baby.

The Latin verb caedere, the likely root of 'caesarean', means what?

To cut: 'caesarean' most likely comes from Latin caedere (past participle caesus), 'to cut', rather than from Julius Caesar, whose mother Aurelia lived decades after his birth.

Guidelines say caesareans should not be scheduled before how many weeks without a reason?

39 weeks: ACOG advises against scheduling a caesarean or induction before 39 completed weeks without a medical reason, because the lungs and brain keep maturing through the last weeks.

About how many babies are born preterm each year worldwide?

About 15 million, more than 1 in 10 births, by WHO's long-standing estimate; rates range from about 5% to 18% of deliveries by country, and preterm complications are the leading cause of death in under-fives.

What do very premature babies' lungs lack that keeps the air sacs from collapsing?

Surfactant, a lipid-protein film lining the alveoli, is made in quantity only from about 34 weeks; without it the air sacs collapse on each breath, causing respiratory distress syndrome, the classic lung problem of prematurity.

Skin-to-skin 'kangaroo care' for premature babies was first developed in which city?

Bogotá: Colombian paediatricians Edgar Rey and Héctor Martínez began kangaroo mother care at the Instituto Materno Infantil in 1978 as an alternative to scarce incubators, presenting it internationally in 1983.

The first American newborn intensive care unit opened in 1960 at which hospital?

Yale New Haven Hospital: paediatrician Louis Gluck, often called the father of neonatology, opened the first American newborn intensive care unit there in 1960.

A low birth weight is defined as less than how much?

2.5 kg (2,500 g, about 5.5 pounds) is WHO's threshold for low birth weight; under 1.5 kg is very low and under 1 kg extremely low birth weight.

Who invented the 'Boater', the first waterproof diaper cover, in 1946?

Marion Donovan, a Connecticut mother, cut up a shower curtain to make the Boater in 1946 and later switched to parachute nylon; she patented it in 1951 and sold the rights for $1 million.

Which company makes Pampers?

Procter & Gamble's Pampers brings in more than $10 billion in annual revenue; rival Huggies is a Kimberly-Clark brand, and the two fought the 1980s 'Diaper Wars'.

In what year were Pampers first launched?

1961: after Procter & Gamble engineer Victor Mills began work on a disposable diaper in 1956, Pampers were test-marketed in Peoria, Illinois, in 1961.

What is a diaper called in British and Australian English?

Nappy, probably a shortening of 'napkin'; cloth versions are made from cotton, hemp, bamboo or microfibre and washed for reuse.

What is the most common skin disorder seen in infants?

Diaper rash (irritant diaper dermatitis), caused by moisture, friction and contact with urine and stool, affects most babies at some point and peaks between 9 and 12 months.

Which mineral did Johnson & Johnson drop from its US baby powder in 2020?

Talc: facing thousands of lawsuits alleging asbestos contamination, Johnson & Johnson ended talc-based baby powder sales in the US and Canada in May 2020 and moved its worldwide product to cornstarch.

What is a pacifier called in Britain and Australia?

Dummy is the British and Australian word; soother is Canadian, binky and paci American, dodie Irish.

Which part of a pacifier stops a baby swallowing it?

The shield, the broad plate between teat and handle, is too wide to pass into the mouth; safety standards require ventilation holes in it so a child can breathe if it does lodge.

'Binky' began in about 1935 as what?

A trademarked brand name: the Binky Baby Products Company of New York registered 'Binky' for its pacifiers and other baby goods in about 1935, and the name went generic in American usage.

What did 19th-century American babies suck on before rubber pacifiers?

Sugar-teats, or sugar tits: a spoonful of sugar tied in a twist of cloth and moistened for the baby to suck, used long before rubber pacifiers appeared in the late 1800s.

The earliest known stroller, built in 1733, was designed by which English architect?

William Kent, the Palladian architect and garden designer, built a shell-shaped carriage on wheels for the 3rd Duke of Devonshire's children in 1733, the earliest known stroller.

What was Kent's 1733 baby carriage intended to be pulled by?

A goat, or a small pony: Kent's shell-shaped carriage had a harness for an animal rather than handles for a person, and the Duke of Devonshire commissioned it for his children.

Who invented the collapsible umbrella stroller?

Owen Maclaren, a retired aeronautical engineer who had worked on the Spitfire undercarriage, patented his folding aluminium 'Baby Buggy' in 1965 after struggling with his granddaughter's pram at an airport.

What is a stroller called in British English?

Pushchair (or buggy) is the British word for a stroller a child sits in; a pram, short for perambulator, is the heavier carriage a baby lies in.

The word 'crib' comes from an Old English word meaning what?

Manger: Old English cribb was a manger or fodder rack for cattle (the sense kept in 'Christmas crib') and also a stall, which fits the idea of penning in the child.

US safety rules limit the gap between crib slats to how much?

2 3/8 inches (about 6 cm): US crib rules cap slat spacing so a baby's head cannot slip between the bars; drop-side cribs were banned in 2011 for a similar trapping risk.

Who invented the modern spill-proof sippy cup, licensed to Playtex?

Richard Belanger, a mechanical engineer who knew valves from designing hot-glue-gun nozzles, devised a no-spill cup for his son in the 1980s; Playtex licensed the design.

In the 2010s, US baby walkers caused about how many emergency-room injuries a year?

About 2,000: a 2018 Pediatrics study counted more than 230,000 walker injuries in US emergency rooms from 1990 to 2014, falling to roughly 2,000 a year after a 2010 safety standard; the AAP has called for a ban.

Do baby walkers help babies learn to walk sooner?

No, they may delay it: a 2002 BMJ study linked each 24 hours of walker use to walking alone about three days later, because walkers let babies move without building the muscles and balance walking needs.

Which infant video brand did Disney own from 2001 to 2013?

Baby Einstein, started by Julie Aigner-Clark in her basement in 1996 with borrowed camera gear; Disney bought the company in 2001 and sold it to Kids II in 2013.

Which company's 'Baby Shark' video became the most-viewed on YouTube in 2020?

Pinkfong's 'Baby Shark Dance' overtook 'Despacito' in November 2020 and in January 2022 became the first YouTube video to pass 10 billion views.

The company behind the viral 2016 'Baby Shark' video is based in which country?

South Korea: Pinkfong is the children's brand of Seoul-based The Pinkfong Company (formerly SmartStudy), which uploaded its version in 2016; the song itself is an older campfire tune believed to be in the public domain.

Who wrote the most famous lullaby, the 1868 'Wiegenlied'?

Johannes Brahms wrote the 'Wiegenlied', Op. 49 No. 4, in 1868 for his friend Bertha Faber on the birth of her second son; its tune is widely known simply as 'Brahms's Lullaby'.

The word 'lullaby' was first recorded in roughly which year?

About 1560: 'lullaby' is first recorded in the 1560s, from Middle English lullen, 'to lull', with the soothing 'by' of 'bye-bye'.

Who was the first to use the term 'Mother Goose' for nursery rhymes, in 1780?

Thomas Carnan, stepson and successor of publisher John Newbery, brought out 'Mother Goose's Melody, or Sonnets for the Cradle' in 1780; Charles Perrault had used 'Mother Goose' for fairy tales, not rhymes, in 1697.

The tune of 'Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star' comes from an 18th-century song in which language?

French: the tune is 'Ah! vous dirai-je, maman', published in France in 1761 and later varied by Mozart; the words are Jane Taylor's 1806 poem 'The Star'.

Ancient Greek and Roman tomb statuettes show babies wrapped how?

In swaddling clothes: votive and tomb figurines from Greece, Etruria and Rome show infants bound tightly in bands, a practice the physician Soranus of Ephesus described in detail in the 2nd century AD.

Cradle cap is a benign form of which condition?

Seborrhoeic dermatitis in its infantile form is cradle cap, which is not contagious, not an allergy and not caused by poor hygiene.

In much of the developed world, toilet training usually begins between what ages?

Between 18 months and 2 years, once a child can stay dry for a couple of hours and follow simple instructions; most are reliably trained by three or four, with occasional accidents.

The post-war baby boom generation is usually defined as those born in which years?

1946 to 1964 is the usual span; the boomers are followed by Generation X.

The baby shower most likely borrowed its name from which earlier party?

A bridal shower: the term 'shower' for a gift-giving party came from 19th-century bridal showers, where, by one popular account, presents were tucked inside a parasol opened over the bride.

Traditionally, a baby shower was given only for which child?

The first: traditional etiquette held that a shower marked a woman's first baby only, since later children could reuse the same things, and that only women attended; both customs have loosened.

Which newborn reflex is nicknamed the 'fencing pose'?

The asymmetrical tonic neck reflex: when the head turns, the arm and leg on that side straighten and the others bend, like a fencer's lunge; present from birth, it fades by about six months.