infancy & babyhood

• Infancy, also known as babyhood, is the period of life between birth and the acquisition of language approximately one to two years later
• Neonate


  A newborn in the first month of life
• The neonatal period is the first 4 weeks of a child's life. It is a time when changes are very rapid
• After a month, a baby is no longer considered a neonate
• Infancy is the shortest of all Developmental Periods
• Neonatal environment


  • Caring for a newborn varies across cultures
  • Nearly all cultures promote breastfeeding as the ideal way to nourish the young infant
  • Some mothers bottle-feed their newborns or switch to bottle-feeding after a trial run with breastfeeding
  • Some infants are considered to be at risk for short-term or long-term problems and must receive extra care during the neonatal period
  • Babies born prematurely and who have low birth weight are at risk for a number of complications
  • Many at-risk babies show remarkable resilience and outgrow their problems, especially if they have personal resources, such as sociability and intelligence, and grow up in stimulating and supportive postnatal environments where someone loves them
• The average weight of a newborn is 7.5 pounds, which will double by 4 months and triple by 12 months
• The average length of a newborn is about 20 inches, and the average length at one to two years is about 26-32 inches
• Body proportion


  The head initially makes up about 50 percent of our entire length when we are developing in the womb. At birth, the head makes up about 25 percent of our length
• The brain in the first two years

  • The size of the brain increases from 25% to 75% within 2 years
  • Most of the brain's 100 to 200 billion neurons are present at birth, but they are not fully mature and during the next several years dendrites will undergo a period of transient exuberance or temporary dramatic growth
  • About 40 percent of these connections will be lost as the prefrontal cortex matures, the child is increasingly able to regulate or control emotions, to plan activity, strategize, and have better judgment
  • The development of myelin, a coating of fatty tissues around the axon of the neuron, helps insulate the nerve cell and speed the rate of transmission of impulses from one cell to another, enhancing the building of neural pathways and improving coordination and control of movement and thought processes
• Reflexes


  Involuntary movements in response to stimulation that occur automatically and are signals that the infant is functioning well neurologically. Within the first several weeks of life these reflexes are replaced with voluntary movements or motor skills
• Gross motor skills


  Voluntary movements involving the use of large muscle groups and are typically large movements of the arms, legs, head, and torso. These skills begin to develop first
• Fine motor skills


  More exact movements of the hands and fingers, including the ability to reach and grasp an object. Newborns cannot grasp objects voluntarily but do wave their arms toward objects of interest
• Vision is the most poorly developed sense at birth, while hearing is the most developed sense
• Newborns can distinguish between sour, bitter, sweet, and salty flavors and show a preference for sweet flavors. They are sensitive to touch and can distinguish between their mother's scent and that of others
• Sleep development across the first year

  • Newborns sleep about 14-16 hours a day in 2-4 hour shifts and their sleep is spread out evenly across daytime and nighttime hours
  • At 2-3 months, infants are able to consolidate their sleep bouts into more of a day/night pattern
  • At 4 months, the 4-month sleep regression results from a large burst of brain growth and a physical growth spurt
  • At 8 months, another period of regression happens with the emergence of crawling
  • At 10 months, sleep patterns may shift again just as infants learn to pull themselves up into standing position
  • At 12 months, total sleep is still about 14-15 hours, but infants will sleep longest at night and take 2 naps a day for about 2.5 hours
• Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS)


  A condition that occurs when an infant stops breathing, usually during the night, and suddenly dies without an apparent cause
• Risk factors for SIDS

  • SIDS is less likely to occur in infants who use a pacifier when they go to sleep
  • Low birth weight infants are 5 to 10 times more likely to die of SIDS than are their normal-weight counterparts
  • Infants whose siblings have died of SIDS are two to four times as likely to die of it
  • Six percent of infants with sleep apnea die of SIDS
  • SIDS is more common in infants who are passively exposed to cigarette smoke
  • SIDS is more common if infants sleep in soft bedding
  • SIDS is less common when infants sleep in a bedroom with a fan
  • SIDS occurs more often in infants with abnormal brain stem functioning involving the neurotransmitter serotonin
• Breast milk


  Considered the ideal diet for newborns, providing the right amount of calories, fat, and protein to support overall physical and neurological development, a source of easily absorbed iron, resistance against many diseases, and an easier transition to solid foods
• The collection and distribution of breast milk has become a million dollar industry supplying hospitals and others in need of the ideal diet
• Infantile marasmus


  Starvation due to a lack of calories and protein, where children who do not receive adequate nutrition lose fat and muscle until their bodies can no longer function
• Iron in breast milk


  • More easily absorbed in the body than iron in dietary supplements
  • Provides resistance against many diseases
  • More easily digested by infants than formula
  • Helps babies transition to solid foods more easily than bottle feeding
• Breast Milk Industry


  The collection and distribution of breast milk has become a million dollar industry supplying hospitals and others in need of the ideal diet
• Children in some countries are at risk for two major types of malnutrition due to insufficient nutrition given at birth
• Infantile marasmus


  Starvation due to a lack of calories and protein. Children who do not receive adequate nutrition lose fat and muscle until their bodies can no longer function
• Kwashiorkor


  The "disease of the displaced child". Children who have diets deficient in protein may experience this, resulting in a loss of appetite and swelling of the abdomen as the body begins to break down the vital organs as a source of protein
• Babies who are breast fed are much less at risk of malnutrition than those who are bottle fed
• Cognitive Development


  Refers to thinking and memory processes, and cognitive development refers to long-term changes in these processes
• Jean Piaget's Cognitive Development Theory


  • Piaget created and studied an account of how children and youth gradually become able to think logically and scientifically
• Schema


  The actions or mental representations that organize knowledge
• Assimilation


  When children use their existing schemes to deal with new information or experiences
• Accommodation


  When children adjust their schemes to take new information and experiences into account
• Organization


  The grouping of isolated behaviors and thoughts into a higher-order system
• Equilibration


  The mechanism that Piaget proposed to explain how children shift from one stage of thought to the next
• Sensorimotor Stage


  • Lasts from birth to about 2 years of age. Infants construct an understanding of the world by coordinating sensory experiences with physical, motoric actions
• By the age of 6 to 8 months infants have learned to perceive gravity and support
• Infants' exploration and understanding of gravity and support

  Physical developments occurring around this same time period
• Infant memory is rather fleeting and fragile, resulting into an amnesia experienced later by older children and adults
• Infantile amnesia


  The inability to recall memories from the first few years of life
• Perspectives on infantile amnesia


  • Biological: Immaturity of the infant brain, especially areas crucial to autobiographical memory formation
  • Cognitive: Lack of linguistic skills limits ability to mentally represent events and encode memory
  • Social: Lack of understanding of "self" in infants and young toddlers