2023-07-20

My first three baby discoveries

I recently became a dad for the first time, and-- true to expectation-- I'm being rapidly enlightened to a new-to-me world of babies. Here are the two interesting things and one profound thing I've learned in the first month of fatherhood:

1. The purpose of "shushing"

2. The extent of the sucking reflex

3. Devolution of the grabbing reflex

1. The purpose of "shushing"

Everyone has seen the basic way to calm a crying baby: pick them up, rock or pat them, and "shush" them. In the movies, it works every time. To my surprise, it's actually been working pretty much just like that in real life too! But why tell a newborn baby to shush? They don't speak my language, or any language; they don't comprehend much of anything I'm doing, and certainly have no way of knowing that when I say "shhhhhh" I mean "please quiet down, be comforted by my touch and presence, and stop crying." (As if a newborn could even control these impulses if he could understand!) 

But shushing does work! But why? 

I've come to the opinion that shushing should not be seen as a command-- "SHH!"-- but as a sound-- "shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh..." And what does that sound like? Try a calm and long "shhhhh" or "zjuuhhh" and what do you hear? White noise! White noise machines (mechanical are my preference) also work wonders on babies. (Or this 10-hour white noise video on YouTube, if you're in a pinch.) And why would white noise be calming? My hypothesis is that it mimics (close enough) the sound of the womb. We know that the womb is not silent; my un-researched guess is that the ambient sound inside a womb is a somewhat-consistent whoosh. Try it on the next crying baby you find: the longer and more constant your "shhhhh," the more effective.

2. The extent of the sucking reflex

In one of the first glimpses I ever caught of my child via ultrasound, she was already sucking her thumb. Before leaving the birthing center, the nurses instructed me that babies have a sucking reflex: if anything stimulates their mouth properly, they have to suck; be it a nipple, bottle, pacifier, her finger, my finger, or even just my arm. 

What was very surprising to me is that there also seems to be a sucking reflex in a baby's fingers! 

Recently I wanted my daughter to take a feeding, but she was filling her mouth with her fingers instead. So, in the most playfully annoying and hopefully-mildly-agitating way I could (it really does come naturally as a dad), I started kissing and sucking on her other hand. (I really can't think of any reason I needed to do this, other than to be annoying. Sorry, baby. Welcome to the household!) And that's when something I never expected happened: she released tension in her fist and offered me the finger(s) I was trying to suck on! It was as if she was saying, "Oh, you like to suck on fingers to be pacified too? Here, try one of these!" 

To clarify: 

• This child was less than 1 month old. There is no possible way she had any cognizance of any "need" that I as an external person could have been expressing to her. Her offering up her fingers must have been purely reflexive. 

• I say that she "offered me finger(s)" because it happened reproducibly, and only to the finger(s) I was stimulating. This was enough to rule out in my mind the possibility that she was just flailing/flexing her hands (which is also incessant). 

• I did not find it surprising that babies have a reflex to suck (on nipples), and so anything sufficiently-similar (viz. fingers) stimulate the same reflex. Nor was it particularly interesting to me that babies find that their own fingers are sufficiently nipple-y to be a pacifying snack. 

• What was so surprising to me was that there is not only a reflex to suck when the mouth is stimulated, but there also seems to be a reflex to make fingers suckable when the hand is stimulated!

Perhaps this helps explain how they "know" to suck their thumb/fingers in the first place?

3. Devolution of the grabbing reflex

And now for a deep moment, even if overanalyzed: 

Babies also have a well known grabbing reflex. Put your finger in a baby's palm, and he will wrap his own fingers around yours. In fact, I noticed the nurses verifying this activity, pulling my baby upward by both arms to confirm the baby's reflex and grip strength. 

To me, the tiny fingers wrapped around a big-people finger makes some of the most heart-touching photos. I'm not sure if that's why babies do this; or if it has something more to do with holding on for dear life lest they be dropped by their mothers. (I'm picturing this baby sloth grasping it's momma.) 

The psychological implications are something like this: 

Babies are completely helpless and defenseless, and so willingly accept and grasp any hand extended to them. Without others to care for their wellbeing, they will not survive.

Fast forward to sitting on the couch with my wife and our new baby, just home from the hospital. I'm amusing myself with my baby's grab reflex in one hand when I get the idea to test my wife's grab reflex as we're holding hands. Since we were already holding hands, I didn't need to ask to set up this experiment. I merely positioned my hand so that her fingers draped over my index finger and into my palm, locked in place by my thumb. Then I pulled gently, just like I was pulling against my baby's hand at the same moment. My wife instantly let go! I tried it again before I explained the experiment; same result.

Contrasting the behaviors of adult and infant, and drawing (stretching?) the psychological conclusions:

Some time between infancy and adulthood, we learn that not all extended hands are there to help. Some hands are offered, only to pull us in a direction we do not want to go. As we age, it becomes easier-- even perceived as self preservation-- to reject the outstretched hand and any potential aid rather than accept it unto eventual affliction.

Try it with your significant other. When you give a gentle tug, do they hold on tighter or hurriedly let go? Try not to draw too deep a meaning!

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