You are pregnant (or your wife is), there is little left for the baby to arrive and you are not sure how it will be. You have seen babies other times, from your friends, from your coworkers and even on TV. The problem is that those who go out in the cinema and those you see on the street have a few days, if not weeks, and the appearance is very different from that of a baby in the first hours or days.
So that on the day of birth you are clear about how the baby will be, or how it could be, we will talk to you after the appearance of the baby at birth, so that if you want to do the same exercise that we will do, observing a baby from top to bottom, that is, from the head to the feet, to explain what their characteristics are, what you can find and what to do in case of doubt .
The baby is already born
He has already been born and they have put it on your chest. Dad has already taken a picture that has been shared for a while Whattsapp and you have hardly been able to look at him, for having him so close. You want to see him whole, you want to touch him, but it's still too soon. Now you have to give it your warmth and you have to leave it on you, because that way it will want to approach your chest to make the first shot. It is amazing the energy with which he was born, how awake he is and what opens his eyes. Incredible, but normal. Babies are born that way precisely to know you well and to start eating. When finished, when you have made your first shot, you will sleep for a few hours and will not be as awake again, for so long, until a few weeks have passed.
Glancing at his eyes
Let us say that a few hours have passed and that you are already calm with the baby. You will want to know him more then. When you open your eyes you will see the color and you will wonder if it is already the definitive color because you will see them blue, or perhaps gray, or perhaps much darker. The reality is that no, it is not usually the final color, because over the months it changes.
You may have a red spot on the white part of either of the two eyes, of blood. This is normal, because the pressure through the birth canal can be so high that it causes bleeding in the eye and even swelling in the face. Over the days it will disappear.
Time to look at your head
Looking at his head you will see, if he was born by vaginal delivery, which has a slightly elongated shape. Maybe there is some swollen and soft area. It is what is known as cephalohematoma, a bruise under the skin, but above the skull. It is also a consequence of childbirth and is due to the rupture of some blood vessels. It is not dangerous (because it is above the skull and not in the brain space) but it may take several weeks to disappear.
The baby will have hair, very soft hair that will not last long. There are babies with more hair, others with less, but most of them begin to fall within a few weeks, leaving the bald baby just like a grandfather. Over the weeks the new hair will appear, which may be different from the baby both in texture (it is a stiffer hair) and in color.
You will notice, if you touch his head with his fingers, as if guessing his shape, two holes in the top. It's the fontanelles, which They are the gaps left by the bones of the skull as they grow and join together. The largest fontanel is the previous one, which is above the forehead. The smallest is further back, below the crown. They can touch each other without fear, albeit delicately. There are many parents who are very repelus to touch them, but they are not as fragile as they may seem, because they are covered with a thick and resistant membrane that protects the interior while there is no bone.
Baby's skin
They are born with a bluish color that is quite scary, but immediately it takes on the pink color with which we expected to meet. Some arrive covered in the vernix caseosa, a layer that protects the skin inside the uterus and that for a while this part is less and less removed.
The skin will be soft, but soon you will see, as the days go by, it begins to flake and literally that the baby starts to peel. We must not do anything special beyond putting moisturizer and understand that it is as if they were changing the skin. After a few days your skin will be great again.
It is possible that there are birthmarks, the most common being flat or simple nevus hemangiomas (the angel's kiss and the stork's peck) are well known, which are red spots due to superficial vascular formations, which disappear over the months (normally). In some cases, the hemangioma is more bulky, as a result of the dilation of blood vessels in the most superficial part of the skin. In the first months it can increase a little in size, but as a rule they usually disappear alone with the passage of time. We can also find the Mongolian spot, very common in babies with brown skin and which is also benign.
Maybe not at birth, but after a few days the baby could have the call miliary acne. They are granites that come out mostly in the nose and chin. The sebaceous glands of the skin begin to secrete sebum (fat) but often find a pore of the skin still closed. This causes the granites that, days or weeks later, leave alone without doing anything. If it spreads a lot throughout the face, the possibility that something may be causing an allergy (softener, something that the mother eats and passes through the milk, etc.) should be assessed.
Shoulders, back and chest
By undressing it, you may realize that your baby has hair. Come on, you see it very hairy. It's normal, it's the lanugo. It grows towards the end of pregnancy and usually falls before birth or a few days later. If the baby is born a little early it is more likely to have it and take a little longer to lose.
Looking at the chest we can see that the breasts are, perhaps, a little bulky. This is as a result of the transfer of hormones during pregnancy and lactation, which can even cause milk to secrete. It is normal, it lasts for a while, but it disappears at the moment when these hormones stop coming. Do not touch or squeeze them, because the milk extraction reflex would be generated and the baby could suffer a mastitis (I have seen astonishing mothers squeezing to cause the milk ejection, thinking that when they take out all the milk, the swelling will disappear ).
The abdomen and the navel
We reach the abdomen, which will be bulky and in the navel we will see the rest of the cord, white, which will dry up with the days. As we have told you on several occasions, the cure of the navel is not essential, although we do have to ensure that it is clean and dry so that it falls within three weeks.
Genitals
In the case of girls we can see that they secrete a transparent flow, white or with traces of blood, motivated by the hormones of the mother in pregnancy, being normal. Children, meanwhile, have the skin that covers the glans attached to it (phimosis, which is normal) and the testicles that, although they can retract and sometimes not be in the bag, it is normal if most of the time they are in the scrotum It might be that there are hydrocele (fluid in the scrotum), which comes from the abdomen because there is a communication. Normally the liquid is absorbed over time, but sometimes an increase in the liquid can be observed when the child cries, which will be a sign that there is inguinal hernia and must be assessed by the pediatrician.
In reference to the care of the baby's penis, you can read about it here, and about the care of girls' vulva, here.
Legs and feet
You will see that their legs are arched and that they are very small and thin, as unable to sustain their standing weight. This is because they simply do not have the strength or the ability to do so. Yes it is true that if you hold a baby upright and notice a surface under his feet, he comes to make the gesture of walking, but it is only a reflection and, obviously, it is still far from being a reality.
His feet are tiny and you will surely be counting to confirm that there are 5 and no more, no less, the fingers you see. You will observe that the nails are as sunk in the finger, impossible to cut in case they grow. You can be calm because they take a while to start growing and, at that time, stop being so "buried."
Within a few days, more about the newborn baby
For today we will leave it here. Another day we talked more about the newborn explaining things about his weight and his size.
Photos | Thinkstock
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