Infancy and Toddlerhood

In a report by the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) and the World Health Organization (WHO),
data showed 20.1 percent of newborns suffer from LBW. This was lower than the 20.4 percent in 2012
and 21.5 percent in 2000.
However, while there was a decreasing trend in the percentage of babies with LBW, there was a slight
increase in the absolute numbers —to 480,700 babies in 2015 from 479,500 babies in 2012. In year 2000,
there were a total of 498,100 babies with LBW in the country.
At risk of being born premature are babies of mothers who are anemic or underweight and overweight
before and during pregnancy, as well as those who suffer from high blood pressure, diabetes, infections
and other conditions.
The babies of mothers who are too young or too old, or experience poor birth spacing, as well as those
who smoke, consume alcoholic beverages and undergo unnecessary caesarean deliveries, among others,
could falter in their growth and development in the womb.
Anoxia and Hypoxia
One of leading causes of infant brain damage is lack of oxygen shortly after birth.
Hypoxia occurs when the infant is deprived of the adequate amount of oxygen,
leading to mild to moderate brain damage. Apoxia occurs when the infant undergoes a
total lack of oxygen, which can lead to severe brain damage. This lack of oxygen is
typically caused by umbilical cord problems, birth canal problems, blocked airways,
and placenta abruption. Both hypoxia and anoxia can lead to cerebral palsy and a host
of other medical disorders.
Newborn Communication
Do newborns communicate? Certainly, they do. They do not, however, communicate
with the use of language. Instead, they communicate their thoughts and needs with
body posture (being relaxed or still), gestures, cries, and facial expressions. A person
who spends adequate time with an infant can learn which cries indicate pain and
which ones indicate hunger, discomfort, or frustration
Sensory Development
As infants and children grow, their senses play a vital role in encouraging and
stimulating the mind and in helping them observe their surroundings. Two terms are
important to understand when learning about the senses. The first is sensation, or the
interaction of information with the sensory receptors. The second is perception, or the
process of interpreting what is sensed. It is possible for someone to sense something
without perceiving it. Gradually, infants become more adept at perceiving with their
senses, making them more aware of their environment and presenting more
affordances or opportunities to interact with objects.
Vision
What can young infants see, hear, and smell? Newborn infants’ sensory abilities are
significant, but their senses are not yet fully developed. Many of a newborn’s innate
preferences facilitate interaction with caregivers and other humans. The womb is a
dark environment void of visual stimulation. Consequently, vision is the most poorly
developed sense at birth. Newborns typically cannot see further than 8 to 16 inches
away from their faces, have difficulty keeping a moving object within their gaze, and
can detect contrast more than color differences. If you have ever seen a newborn
struggle to see, you can appreciate the cognitive efforts being made to take in visual
stimulation and build those neural pathways between the eye and the brain.
Hearing
The infant’s sense of hearing is very keen at birth. If you remember from an earlier
module, this ability to hear is evidenced as soon as the 5th month of prenatal
development. In fact, an infant can distinguish between very similar sounds as early as
one month after birth and can distinguish between a familiar and non-familiar voice
even earlier. Babies who are just a few days old prefer human voices, they will listen
to voices longer than sounds that do not involve speech (Vouloumanos & Werker,
2004), and they seem to prefer their mother’s voice over a stranger’s voice (Mills &
Melhuish, 1974). In an interesting experiment, 3-week-old babies were given pacifiers
that played a recording of the infant’s mother’s voice and of a stranger’s voice. When
the infants heard their mother’s voice, they sucked more strongly at the pacifier (Mills
& Melhuish, 1974). Some of this ability will be lost by 7 or 8 months as a child
becomes familiar with the sounds of a particular language and less sensitive to sounds
that are part of an unfamiliar language.
Taste and Smell

Not only are infants sensitive to touch, but newborns can also distinguish between
sour, bitter, sweet, and salty flavors and show a preference for sweet flavors. They can
distinguish between their mother’s scent and that of others, and prefer the smell of
their mothers. A newborn placed on the mother’s chest will inch up to the mother’s
breast, as it is a potent source of the maternal odor. Even on the first day of life,
infants orient to their mother’s odor and are soothed, when crying, by their mother’s
odor (Sullivan et al., 2011).

Infancy and Toddlerhood

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In a report by the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) and the World Health Organization (WHO),

Anoxia and Hypoxia

Taste and Smell

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