Congratulations on having a baby! It’s the most wonderful time of your life. You mothers have a huge impact on the lives of your children throughout. In fact, you have a strong physical, emotional and developmental impact on your children even before they are born, while being in your womb.
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Did you know about the impact of your smell on your baby?
Although all the sensory systems start developing in utero; but the development of the sense of smell predominates in early fetal life. Babies recognize their mother's scent even before they are born. Your baby is biologically and genetically programmed to connect to you through your unique smell. The process of development of olfactory cells (cells responsible for the sense of smell) begins as soon as the first trimester of pregnancy. The fetus breathes and swallows the amniotic fluid in utero. The ongoing development of the fetus helps him/her in recognizing the unique smell of his / her mother.
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The odour of their mothers’ amniotic fluid is the first smell babies are exposed to. The same sense of smell also helps the baby to recognize his / her mother after birth. A newborn baby’s vision at birth is not so well developed as the sense of smell. This strong and unique sense of smell (learnt in utero by the baby) helps your little one to recognize your presence even from a distance after birth. Your baby is able to differentiate the smell of your breast milk from the breast milk produced by other mothers as well as from any other type of milk.
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This smell helps the baby to recognize you and leads your baby to snuggle on your chest for comfort and sense of security. This also helps in initial bond formation between you and your baby, which goes a long way in the baby’s life. It not only helps in emotional attachment but also contributes to the baby’s overall development. Even if you are not able to breastfeed, your baby will know your smell and the smell of your skin and will immediately recognize you when you come close to your little one. The facial recognition comes much later.
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Your baby can hear you even before birth. Isn’t it amazing?
Babies’ sense of hearing develops significantly by 2nd trimester of pregnancy. With each passing week, the sensitivity of the fetus to external sounds improves markedly. By the third trimester, they may even respond to certain sounds and noises in utero. Although many external sounds get muffled in utero, the baby is still able to hear the mother’s voice apart from other sounds like those of flow of blood through umbilical blood vessels, maternal heartbeat etc.
Also, the fetus may be able to hear other external sounds coming from the maternal environment. Although there are reports that the baby in utero may be able to hear and recognize the father’s voice too, the scientific literature supporting this is scarce.
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However, the baby in utero is able to differentiate the mother’s voice from other sounds. In fact, the babies do react to these sounds by changes in their heart rate. Hence, even before babies are born, they hear your voice and start recognizing it. The very first time you hold them, they recognize you by how you sound.
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The development of these sensory powers when the baby is inside your womb, apart from multiple other developmental changes in both you and your baby, goes a long way in establishing a life-long bond between you and your baby.
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How and when recognition starts. Knowing you by sound Babies know their biological mother's voice even before birth. Once they are born, any primary caregiver's voice becomes quickly recognizable. Your baby's language learning begins with recognizing voices.
Your baby starts to understand speech even before they begin to speak. From a very early age, they will be interested in looking at your face and listening to your voice. At about two to four months, your baby will begin to respond to the different tones that you may use.
Nostrils form in the first trimester, and scent receptors form by the second trimester. In the womb, baby breathes in their mother's amniotic fluid, which helps them to become familiar with scent—specifically, their mother's scent.
At birth, they are starting to recognize your voices, faces, and smells to figure out who is taking care of them. Since the maternal voice is audible in utero, an infant starts to recognize their mother's voice from the third trimester.
By listening to you and others, your baby will discover the importance of speech long before they understand or repeats specific words. By one month, they'll be able to identify you by voice, even if you're in another room.
One of my favorite things to do is show mothers how their baby can smell them from as far away as 1 to 2 feet. I will hold the baby and engage the baby with my eyes, while telling the mother to watch what happens. The baby always turns her head after a few seconds and looks towards the mother.
For starters, babies will learn to speak more slowly than if you did talk to them. Not speaking with your children means their vocabularies will be smaller. Not conversing with your children also means that you're spending less time paying attention to and interacting with them.
Apart from babbling around 6 months of age, when babies start to play with language sounds, they won't say their official first words until they're around one. (Of course, they have their own ways of communicating with you from birth—by crying, gurgling, sighing, cooing and, starting around 2 months, smiling.)
Erramatti Mangamma, who gave birth at the age of 73 through in-vitro fertilisation via caesarean section in the city of Hyderabad, India, currently holds the record for being the oldest living mother. She delivered twin baby girls, making her also the oldest mother to give birth to twins.
Newborns have a highly developed sense of smell. Though your baby can't yet recognize you by sight, they'll know you by your natural scent, and that's what they'll most want to smell. They'll also be drawn to the scent of your breast milk. These smells are connected to their basic needs for comfort and food.
Some studies suggest babies may be able to recognize their parents' faces within days of birth, but others say it could take up to two months. Your baby's vision will continue to improve throughout her first year. By the time she's 8 months old, she'll be able to recognize you from across the room.
It's believed fetuses experience taste and smell through inhaling and swallowing the amniotic fluid in the womb. Repeated exposure to flavors of foods eaten by their mothers likely influences babies' taste preferences after birth and potentially has implications for establishing eating habits.
In short, yes: Babies do feel love. Even though it will be quite a while before they're able to verbalize their feelings, they can and do understand emotional attachment. Affection, for example can be felt.
Eyes move in unison, most of the time, by six weeks. The human face is the first 'object' they recognise. Over the first three months, they begin to recognise particular faces and other things (like their teddy bear) in their world.
“Your baby will start to understand when they are separated from you,” says Dr. Hoang. And when they do, they may want to be with you again. In other words, they will miss you.
Infants learned how to produce the mother's voice and produced it more often than the other voice. The neonate's preference for the maternal voice suggests that the period shortly after birth may be important for initiating infant bonding to the mother.
Additionally, the entire hearing apparatus is somewhat immature. That's why newborn babies respond best to high-pitched, exaggerated sounds and voices. Because they learn it in the womb, newborns are born with the ability to distinguish their mother's voice and respond to it above all others.
At around 18 weeks of pregnancy, your unborn baby will start being able to hear sounds in your body like your heartbeat. At 27 to 29 weeks (6 to 7 months), they can hear some sounds outside your body too, like your voice. By the time they are full term, they will be able to hear at about the same level as an adult.
Introduction: My name is Kimberely Baumbach CPA, I am a gorgeous, bright, charming, encouraging, zealous, lively, good person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
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