Read an Excerpt
Think Your Baby Is Big?
The heaviest healthy baby born to a healthy mother was a boy weighing twenty-two pounds, eight ounces. He was born to Signora Carmelina Fedeli of Aversa, Italy, in September 1995.
Babies Are Ahead
The brain grows more during infancy than at any other time. It doubles its volume and reaches approximately 60 percent of its adult size in one year.
Shush! Baby’s Asleep
Babies have shorter sleep cycles than adults. They are also lighter sleepers. According to experts, “sleeping through the night” is a mere five-hour stretch for most infants.
Most Popular Names
(IN THE UNITED STATES)
According to recent surveys, the most popular boy’s name is Michael. And the most popular girl’s name is Ashley, with Jessica coming in a close second. The next most popular names, in descending order, are as follows.
BOYS GIRLS
Matthew Sarah
James Brittany
Zachary Amanda
Joshua Megan
Ryan Elizabeth
Nicholas Michelle
Nathan Ann
Steven Taylor
David Kimberly
Reach Out and Touch Someone…
Especially your baby. New research shows that the gentle hug and touch of parents not only comforts baby but helps baby develop in other important ways.
For example, premature infants in a “grower nursery,” where they’re given special care to gain needed weight, achieved 74 percent more weight when they received extra touching, either from nurses or from parents. They were also healthier, with better digestion and enhanced neurological development. They were happier and better behaved, too, compared to babies who did not receive such attention.
Cry, Baby, Cry
A baby’s long crying jags might make you want to cry, but experts say that it’s a process more sophisticated and purposeful than we might at first suspect.
Baby’s tears actually serve a dual function. Those produced by eye irritants have a different chemical composition than those produced because of crankiness or upset emotions. The former wash unwanted particles away with a saline solution, and the latter soothe the baby with antistress hormones.
Smells Like You, Mom
The sense of smell is actually quite developed in newborns, and in their mothers. According to William Sears, M.D., and Martha Sears, R.N., authors of The Baby Book, not only can a newborn distinguish Mother’s voice from a stranger’s, baby can also pick out her individual scent.
An interesting study of six-day-old newborns found that when Mother’s breast pad was removed from her nursing bra and placed near her newborn’s face, baby turned toward it, while ignoring breast pads from other mothers. “This special scent recognition also holds true for mothers,” write Dr. William Sears and Martha Sears. “Blindfolded mothers can identify their own baby’s smell.”
Most Babies
Mrs. Elizabeth Greenhille of Abbots Langley Great Britain, is alleged to have produced thirty-nine children (thirty-two daughters, seven sons) in a record thirty-eight pregnancies.
