6 ms·

Is newborn smiling just a reflex? Research is challenging the textbooks (2018)

48 points by Hooke 5y ago

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
King-Aaron 5y ago
This is something that interested me when our little one was born. Both my wife and I would swear that he would smile at actual stimuli, more than just a reflex action.
- chmod775 5y ago
  > that he would smile at actual stimuli, more than just a reflex action. That's what a reflex is though: something done involuntarily in response to a stimuli. Which really is the same as what smiling is in adults as well, unless you're faking it. Though adults are likely more capable of suppressing the response. I feel I can't speak to the "social" smile, since in my culture it's really not as common. It's more language than emotion. If you're just smiling randomly here, people will assume you actually are happy and may ask you what you're so happy about - or take it personally. At most a social smile is used as a quick, wordless acknowledgement of someone. Almost a dismissal. To me the social smile is just a lie, and the other kind of smile is what matters in the end.
  - Terry_Roll 5y ago
    Glycine can put a big grin on your face. Kids have higher levels of glycine than adults, thats why they smell nicer than old people.
ezconnect 5y ago
My first born never smiled until the 2nd month I think. I was worried he was blind. My second one knows how to smile from day 1.
pram 5y ago
Babies do all kinds of weird things. One of my daughters said “uh oh!” right out of the womb. She still says it 2 years later the exact same way lol
- supperburg 5y ago
  This is the most fascinating comment in HN history
- crawfordcomeaux 5y ago
  Are you open to answering a battery of questions about this child and are you aware of how to respond to children when they say they see/hear things you don't or say they remember things you know they've never experienced, in such a way as to not teach them to shut down whatever they're experiencing?
  - hansthehorse 5y ago
    I watched my sons daughter 11 hours a day from 1 month old until they moved away when she was 14 months. My wife was still working and I was retired so I had no problem with it. We went to see them for a week each june. After about 4 years of this we went there and from the back seat she said a particular word over and over. I asked him why she was saying this and he said he didn't know but she just started doing it. I had just changed my wifi password to that word. I know it's not really on the topic but I just wanted to relate a very strange coincidence.
    - crawfordcomeaux 5y ago
      Thanks for sharing this! I'm of the mindset that it's safer to assume humans can experience a form of quantum entanglement between them, especially genetically related people than it is to deny the possibility.
Terry_Roll 5y ago
> It was even believed that newborn babies couldn’t feel pain in the same way as adults – meaning they were sometimes subjected to painful surgical procedures without analgesia. It wasn’t until the 1980s that medical professionals realised that the stress of the pain actually led to life-threatening shock and complications. This is just one part of many worrying parts of modern medicine from a few decades ago. If it wasn't for HIV, many surgeons would still be using their bare hands, sometimes cutting themselves but passing on infections, instead of using hypoallergenic latex gloves. Ironic that the likes of Freddie Mercury and other non heterosexual people have helped society become a little safer. In time, I expect to see COVID will have reduced the antibiotic resistance seen so commonly in hospitals, because of the routine deep cleaning regimes now employed and routine wearing of facemasks by all inside a hospital. We might also see the delays in cancer treatments highlighting the one's that work and the one's that dont work. Considering the stigma that existed a few decades ago and still remains in many parts of the world, regarding unplanned pregnancies or unmarried pregnancies, I wonder if the stress the mother experiences through gestation impacts the mental and physical health of the baby. In time I think these societal and religious pressures will be seen as negatives if the mother is outside of those conformist pressures, which will further weaken the conformist grip on society.
- moonchrome 5y ago
  >This is just one part of many worrying parts of modern medicine from a few decades ago. You could say exactly the same thing about any point in the past so what makes you think now is any different ?
  - Terry_Roll 5y ago
    There is more science available, big data, ability to manufacture practically anything for not a lot of money, I love the fact I can hop online and read studies from a journal that published last week. Couldn't do that in the 90's. Increasingly seeing a reversal or abandonment of medical theories as new studies offer new insights and present new theories. So the trend up to WW1 was to use chemicals found in us to treat us, between WW1 and WW2, patented medicine started to appear and this is how big pharma developed. Problem is, in some cases, patented medicine is too alien to the human body, its not evolved enough and so it presents new challenges or problems, depending on your POV. I'm not saying its perfect today, but the explosion in knowledge over the last 30years has been close to exponential, roughly inline with the silicon chip.
crawfordcomeaux 5y ago
Every idea of "Babies can't _________" is automatically suspect for me. I grew up in a culture of denial and this language fits the pattern. We've been nurturing a child for 3 years from the assumption that they're capable of all the things people say they can't do. And wouldn't you know it, they're showing us time and again they very well can. Babies can give consent and often do. People struggling with diaper changes? Probably not looking for consent from the baby or letting them know what's happening. This child has learned we care about what they want. Baby fights taking a bath? This one did 5 times. After that, mom got in the tub and we sat on the edge watching her. We were all in the tub within 5 minutes. Baths are now totally voluntary. Babies can't feel pain? Nonsense, of course. We took the advice of a native medicine woman and taught them to feel the pain and stay with it. This was important for the next point. Too young to learn from natural consequences? Bullshit. We let them stay in a diaper until they let us change it. It only took a few painful diaper rashes between age 1 and 2 before they learned what happens. It was really something to experience them crying from pain and when we asked if they wanted us to do anything, they cried saying "No, just let me feel it!" So they cried on my shoulder a couple minutes, said the pain faded, and then asked to get in the tub. Children need to be bundled in the cold? Definitely not! That keeps the body from learning how to regulate temperature. We let them go outside wearing whatever and monitor them for shivering. We learned that in colder parts of the world people watch children for the second shiver. The theory is the first one is the body relaxing into the cold and the second is the body starting to tense up to create more warmth because the relaxed state has reached its present limit. We were just out in a park for an hour before sunset in 50 degree weather. They didn't start shivering until a few minutes after sunset and the second shiver didn't come for another 10 mins. It was then that they said yes to an offer of clothes. We live in a largely adultist world where science has developed with numerous blindspots for people in minority classes, including children. It makes more sense to abandon conventional wisdom around children these days because much of what humans learned over millenia about humanitng has been lost through the obliteration of the cultures carrying that wisdom. The approach I take is to learn about feelings and needs, observe deeply, experiment gently, learn from cultures facing extreme versions of whatever is being experienced, learn from indigenous people, and trust (but verify) children are infinitely capable. This allows for maximal growth and a natural discovery of limits, rather than someone else unnaturally limiting learning experiences. And normalize repair and flexibility, not fear of pain /injury or rules. Anarchism is closer to nature than all other forms of government, so it makes sense to implement anarchism in the home.
phonypc 5y ago
The distinction seems incoherent. In what way are the genuine emotional smiles of an adult not also "just a reflex"?
rayiner 5y ago
As I always say, they’re just a bundle of cells.
ffhhj 5y ago
A doctor once told me that babies can't see clearly at distance. Well, a few hours after my daughter was born I entered the room where she was sitting on my wife, and she followed me with her eyes, like a much older child, I walked from one side to the other maybe 3+ meters away, and I couldn't stop looking at her watching me, it was unbelievable. Then she did the same to a nurse that entered the room later, paying attention to everything the nurse did around the room. In comparison my second child was the usual sleepy baby that didn't pay any attention to people.
ARandomerDude 5y ago
> Up to the second half of the 20th century, the behaviour of newborns was considered mostly reflexive. This is missing a serious caveat regarding a start date. It might be correct to say since Darwin, or perhaps since Locke, but before that infants were often thought to be far more intellectually capable than most people assume today. Martin Luther, to pick one example, believed infants could have faith in Christ.
jboggan 5y ago
Our baby was caught "smiling" in the high resolution ultrasound a few months before birth. We thought it was a very cute image of her face looking directly out at the ultrasound but we did think it was just a fluke, she couldn't actually be smiling. We have a photo a few weeks after birth where she is curled up on my chest in exactly the same position and she is smiling, and it is exactly the same facial contour as we saw in the ultrasound. That's just her face.
- rayiner 5y ago
  Developmentally, babies aren’t that much different between a few months before birth and a couple of weeks after. Our third one always had his hand on his face in the ultrasounds. He was born with his hand on his face—the pressure left a big handprint on his face for a day or so. And he still liked to be in that position at a few months.

48 points by Hooke 5y ago

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

This is something that interested me when our little one was born. Both my wife and I would swear that he would smile at actual stimuli, more than just a reflex action.

chmod775 5y ago
> that he would smile at actual stimuli, more than just a reflex action. That's what a reflex is though: something done involuntarily in response to a stimuli. Which really is the same as what smiling is in adults as well, unless you're faking it. Though adults are likely more capable of suppressing the response. I feel I can't speak to the "social" smile, since in my culture it's really not as common. It's more language than emotion. If you're just smiling randomly here, people will assume you actually are happy and may ask you what you're so happy about - or take it personally. At most a social smile is used as a quick, wordless acknowledgement of someone. Almost a dismissal. To me the social smile is just a lie, and the other kind of smile is what matters in the end.
- Terry_Roll 5y ago
  Glycine can put a big grin on your face. Kids have higher levels of glycine than adults, thats why they smell nicer than old people.

ezconnect 5y ago

My first born never smiled until the 2nd month I think. I was worried he was blind. My second one knows how to smile from day 1.

pram 5y ago

Babies do all kinds of weird things. One of my daughters said “uh oh!” right out of the womb. She still says it 2 years later the exact same way lol

supperburg 5y ago
This is the most fascinating comment in HN history
crawfordcomeaux 5y ago
Are you open to answering a battery of questions about this child and are you aware of how to respond to children when they say they see/hear things you don't or say they remember things you know they've never experienced, in such a way as to not teach them to shut down whatever they're experiencing?
- hansthehorse 5y ago
  I watched my sons daughter 11 hours a day from 1 month old until they moved away when she was 14 months. My wife was still working and I was retired so I had no problem with it. We went to see them for a week each june. After about 4 years of this we went there and from the back seat she said a particular word over and over. I asked him why she was saying this and he said he didn't know but she just started doing it. I had just changed my wifi password to that word. I know it's not really on the topic but I just wanted to relate a very strange coincidence.
  - crawfordcomeaux 5y ago
    Thanks for sharing this! I'm of the mindset that it's safer to assume humans can experience a form of quantum entanglement between them, especially genetically related people than it is to deny the possibility.

Terry_Roll 5y ago

> It was even believed that newborn babies couldn’t feel pain in the same way as adults – meaning they were sometimes subjected to painful surgical procedures without analgesia. It wasn’t until the 1980s that medical professionals realised that the stress of the pain actually led to life-threatening shock and complications. This is just one part of many worrying parts of modern medicine from a few decades ago. If it wasn't for HIV, many surgeons would still be using their bare hands, sometimes cutting themselves but passing on infections, instead of using hypoallergenic latex gloves. Ironic that the likes of Freddie Mercury and other non heterosexual people have helped society become a little safer. In time, I expect to see COVID will have reduced the antibiotic resistance seen so commonly in hospitals, because of the routine deep cleaning regimes now employed and routine wearing of facemasks by all inside a hospital. We might also see the delays in cancer treatments highlighting the one's that work and the one's that dont work. Considering the stigma that existed a few decades ago and still remains in many parts of the world, regarding unplanned pregnancies or unmarried pregnancies, I wonder if the stress the mother experiences through gestation impacts the mental and physical health of the baby. In time I think these societal and religious pressures will be seen as negatives if the mother is outside of those conformist pressures, which will further weaken the conformist grip on society.

moonchrome 5y ago
>This is just one part of many worrying parts of modern medicine from a few decades ago. You could say exactly the same thing about any point in the past so what makes you think now is any different ?
- Terry_Roll 5y ago
  There is more science available, big data, ability to manufacture practically anything for not a lot of money, I love the fact I can hop online and read studies from a journal that published last week. Couldn't do that in the 90's. Increasingly seeing a reversal or abandonment of medical theories as new studies offer new insights and present new theories. So the trend up to WW1 was to use chemicals found in us to treat us, between WW1 and WW2, patented medicine started to appear and this is how big pharma developed. Problem is, in some cases, patented medicine is too alien to the human body, its not evolved enough and so it presents new challenges or problems, depending on your POV. I'm not saying its perfect today, but the explosion in knowledge over the last 30years has been close to exponential, roughly inline with the silicon chip.

crawfordcomeaux 5y ago

Every idea of "Babies can't _________" is automatically suspect for me. I grew up in a culture of denial and this language fits the pattern. We've been nurturing a child for 3 years from the assumption that they're capable of all the things people say they can't do. And wouldn't you know it, they're showing us time and again they very well can. Babies can give consent and often do. People struggling with diaper changes? Probably not looking for consent from the baby or letting them know what's happening. This child has learned we care about what they want. Baby fights taking a bath? This one did 5 times. After that, mom got in the tub and we sat on the edge watching her. We were all in the tub within 5 minutes. Baths are now totally voluntary. Babies can't feel pain? Nonsense, of course. We took the advice of a native medicine woman and taught them to feel the pain and stay with it. This was important for the next point. Too young to learn from natural consequences? Bullshit. We let them stay in a diaper until they let us change it. It only took a few painful diaper rashes between age 1 and 2 before they learned what happens. It was really something to experience them crying from pain and when we asked if they wanted us to do anything, they cried saying "No, just let me feel it!" So they cried on my shoulder a couple minutes, said the pain faded, and then asked to get in the tub. Children need to be bundled in the cold? Definitely not! That keeps the body from learning how to regulate temperature. We let them go outside wearing whatever and monitor them for shivering. We learned that in colder parts of the world people watch children for the second shiver. The theory is the first one is the body relaxing into the cold and the second is the body starting to tense up to create more warmth because the relaxed state has reached its present limit. We were just out in a park for an hour before sunset in 50 degree weather. They didn't start shivering until a few minutes after sunset and the second shiver didn't come for another 10 mins. It was then that they said yes to an offer of clothes. We live in a largely adultist world where science has developed with numerous blindspots for people in minority classes, including children. It makes more sense to abandon conventional wisdom around children these days because much of what humans learned over millenia about humanitng has been lost through the obliteration of the cultures carrying that wisdom. The approach I take is to learn about feelings and needs, observe deeply, experiment gently, learn from cultures facing extreme versions of whatever is being experienced, learn from indigenous people, and trust (but verify) children are infinitely capable. This allows for maximal growth and a natural discovery of limits, rather than someone else unnaturally limiting learning experiences. And normalize repair and flexibility, not fear of pain /injury or rules. Anarchism is closer to nature than all other forms of government, so it makes sense to implement anarchism in the home.

phonypc 5y ago

The distinction seems incoherent. In what way are the genuine emotional smiles of an adult not also "just a reflex"?

rayiner 5y ago

As I always say, they’re just a bundle of cells.

ffhhj 5y ago

A doctor once told me that babies can't see clearly at distance. Well, a few hours after my daughter was born I entered the room where she was sitting on my wife, and she followed me with her eyes, like a much older child, I walked from one side to the other maybe 3+ meters away, and I couldn't stop looking at her watching me, it was unbelievable. Then she did the same to a nurse that entered the room later, paying attention to everything the nurse did around the room. In comparison my second child was the usual sleepy baby that didn't pay any attention to people.

ARandomerDude 5y ago

> Up to the second half of the 20th century, the behaviour of newborns was considered mostly reflexive. This is missing a serious caveat regarding a start date. It might be correct to say since Darwin, or perhaps since Locke, but before that infants were often thought to be far more intellectually capable than most people assume today. Martin Luther, to pick one example, believed infants could have faith in Christ.

jboggan 5y ago

Our baby was caught "smiling" in the high resolution ultrasound a few months before birth. We thought it was a very cute image of her face looking directly out at the ultrasound but we did think it was just a fluke, she couldn't actually be smiling. We have a photo a few weeks after birth where she is curled up on my chest in exactly the same position and she is smiling, and it is exactly the same facial contour as we saw in the ultrasound. That's just her face.

rayiner 5y ago
Developmentally, babies aren’t that much different between a few months before birth and a couple of weeks after. Our third one always had his hand on his face in the ultrasounds. He was born with his hand on his face—the pressure left a big handprint on his face for a day or so. And he still liked to be in that position at a few months.