Newly made mom and dad begin to communicate with their baby from the first days of his life. And while the baby is asleep, questions usually do not arise. Another situation is during wakefulness. The baby's eyes are cloudy, they always squint somewhere, the gaze does not focus. Parents often wonder whether their child sees them, whether they recognize them.
The ability of babies after birth to sleep soundly, even if the room is noisy, also causes doubts - can the baby hear? In this article we will tell you what and how your newborn sees and hears.
Hearing and vision development before birth
Children begin to hear during pregnancy: in general terms - from 17 weeks of pregnancy, and consciously and clearly - at 27 weeks.
Hearing embryogenesis is very complex and long-term. The formation of the rudiment of the inner ear begins at about 5 weeks. At 8 weeks, the structures of the middle ear are formed, the outer ear (auricle) is formed already in the last three months, and the cartilaginous tissue of the auricle hardens just before delivery.
Until the middle of the gestation period, a labyrinth is being formed. It becomes hard by 17-18 weeks, the hardening of the auditory ossicles continues and this lasts almost until birth.
The baby in the mother's womb begins to pick up the first sounds at 16-17 weeks, and so far these are not at all the sounds that we perceive. The baby catches individual sounds from the outside, listens to her mother's heart, the peristalsis of her intestines, blood flow, voice, but his brain does not yet analyze sounds, because the cerebral cortex has not yet been formed. Thus, the fetus catches the vibrations generated by the sound waves.
To fully capture sounds, that is, hear and analyze sound, the baby begins only at the end of the second trimester. Already in the womb, he can turn his head to sound. But the sounds for him sound muffled, amniotic fluid, the dense abdominal wall of the mother contribute to this. After birth, the auditory functions must adapt to new conditions of existence.
With vision, everything is a little easier. Visual hillocks (prototypes of future eyes) begin to form from the second week of pregnancy. From the 4th week, the formation of lenses begins, and the eyelids and sclera are formed by the middle of pregnancy.
As with the Sound Recognition Center, the center of vision in the brain appears by the beginning of the third trimester. From this point on, the fetus begins to differentiate between light and darkness, night and day. By the time of birth, the eyes of the crumbs are formed, but they differ in the immaturity of all its departments.
Thus, the child begins to see and hear even in utero, before his birth. But this is a qualitatively different sight and hearing.
Features of hearing after birth
A child comes into this world hearing well. He, if there are no pathologies or anomalies in the development of the organs of hearing, from the very first minutes appears to appreciate what a monstrously loud world he appeared in. Sounds come in unexpectedly and stress the baby. Any loud sound can cause a reflex start.
The first month, all your fairy tales and songs, as well as the lisps of your grandmother and grandfather, is an empty phrase for the baby. He is in the process of adaptation and is not yet able to recognize familiar and unfamiliar sounds. But already at 1 month, the baby begins to listen to the voices.
The first thing that he picks up is intonation. Already from the first weeks of life, the baby will feel exactly intonations. What exactly at the same time mom will say - a fairy tale or formulas from the field of nuclear physics in a sincere voice - does not matter.
By the age of three months, the child's auditory center is synchronized with the speech center, and in response to the familiar sound, the baby will be able to respond with a welcoming splash with pens, intonational "hums". By six months, children are well versed in where the sound is coming from, turn their heads at the sound, react to their own name.
If you really want to please your baby with gentle songs and poems, memorize them by six months of age. At 5-6 months, the baby will be able to appreciate them.
What does the child see?
A newborn child perceives the world visually as clusters of dull spots of various sizes without pronounced boundaries. There is no clarity of vision in the first weeks of life. And therefore, it makes no sense to place bright toys and a mobile over the newborn's bed, at least until the age of 1 month.
Already in a month, the baby can distinguish some large objects, carried from his face at a distance of about 40 centimeters. But the baby is not yet able to keep his eyes on him. The eye muscles are too weak for the child to focus in a static position.
The vision of a baby up to a month old is not black and white, as some think, and it is also not upside down. Children see everything in a normal position in space, but blurry (due to physiological hyperopia). Because of the small eyeballs, the formation of the image occurs outside the retina, and not on it.
A newborn child has a developed visual reflex - if you shine a flashlight in the child's face, he will twitch, close his eyes and may even cry. When he is three full weeks old, the baby will begin to see blurred spots almost in color - the formation of color vision begins. This means that the baby cannot yet see her mother and distinguish her from other people visually, but this does not mean at all that he knows her, it just perceives the baby closest to her with the help of tactile sensations and a familiar smell.
After a month, the baby begins to hold his gaze on a static object, however, he is capable of this only for a very short time. At 2 months, the focus of the gaze on the subject becomes longer and, hurray - the baby begins to see the mother's face and distinguish her from other faces. At the same age, the ability to recognize the red color comes.
At three months, the baby begins to follow the object with his eyes, he succeeds well if the object of interest itself moves smoothly. Yellow is added to the colors that the baby sees and distinguishes.
By the end of the fifth month of life, the child can distinguish the colors of the spectrum, including green and blue, he recognizes loved ones and can examine objects at a distance of a meter from him. At 6 months, the child looks reasonably and fixedly, vision becomes stereoscopic, three-dimensional. Starting from 7 months, the child consciously evaluates objects, the distance between them, switches his attention from near objects to distant ones and vice versa.
How can you help your baby to develop the senses?
Thus, after birth, the baby will improve his perception of the world every day - auditory and visual. The task of loving parents at this stage is to help the child to make the adaptation processes more comfortable.
For the development of hearing, you need to talk with the baby more often, let him listen to various sounds - high-frequency, mid-frequency and low-frequency. Play music for your kid, better classical music. Try to exclude too loud and harsh sounds, but it is also not worth leaving the child completely in silence.
All developing activities, bathing, massage, daily gymnastics are accompanied by conversations with the baby, songs and rhymes, jokes, sing lullabies to him. At first, the baby will only perceive intonation nuances, but gradually she will learn to listen to words.
It should be noted that the development of the ability to listen and hear develops speech skills, because most babies are already trying to walk by 3-4 months, repeat the combinations of sounds they hear.
For the development of vision, it is necessary that the baby's room is sufficiently well lit by natural sunlight. Twilight slows down the development of the organs of vision.
Hang toys and rattles at a distance of 40 to 60 centimeters from face level. The bed in the room must be placed so that mom can approach it both from the right and left. Then the baby will perceive the world around him from two sides.
Rattles and other toys need to be chosen in the color that the baby can already see, from 2 months - red, from three - red and yellow, from six months - all colors. There should be no mirrors or artificial lighting near the crib in the nursery.
From a month and a half, you can show your child contrasting black and white geometric shapes drawn by mom on a sheet of paper or printed from the Internet. With a three-month crumb, classes should be carried out using bright and colored objects and drawings.
Walking in the fresh air, you need to pay the baby's attention to birds, animals, cars and people. So the baby will quickly learn to confidently follow moving objects.
The main thing that parents can do to develop children's senses is to carefully observe the child's behavior. If alarming symptoms are found, it is imperative to show the child to the appropriate specialist.
Signs of pathology
Hearing problems can be suspected by the lack of response to a harsh sound. A newborn must necessarily respond to it with fright, flinching, closing his eyes.
If a baby at 2-3 months does not respond to the voice addressed to him, to the sound of rattles, this is a good reason for a visit to a narrow specialist - an audiologist. Sometimes babies can only hear low and medium frequencies, and not perceive high ones. This will indicate a certain degree of hearing loss. You can check this by pouring some semolina into a glass or metal jar. Shake the can over your baby's head. If he demonstrates a response to sound, his hearing is fine.
Vision problems are less amenable to self-diagnosis at home. But parents are obliged to turn to an ophthalmologist if a child at the age of 1 month does not have a pupil response to bright light (the pupil does not narrow), if at the age of three months he does not fix his gaze and does not try to look at soundless objects.
Problems may be indicated by the lack of the ability to follow the eyes of the mother moving around the apartment and moving toys over the bed. And at six months, a child with visual perception problems may not recognize his mother and not distinguish her from strangers.
In order to notice the existing or developed deviations in time, parents should not neglect the mandatory medical examinations of the child.
- First inspection held in 1 month. As part of this test, your child is tested for auditory and visual reflexes.
- Second inspection you need to go in six months. Premature babies are advised to do this earlier - at three months.
- Third compulsory medical examination the child is carried out at the age of 1 year. During this event, the child is examined by both the ENT and the optometrist. If there are problems, the otolaryngologist gives a referral for a consultation with a hearing aid, and the ophthalmologist prescribes additional hardware diagnostic examinations.
It should be noted that premature babies, babies who have experienced a state of acute hypoxia in childbirth, and have ischemic brain lesions are more prone to problems with vision and hearing from birth.
Quite often, problems with hearing and visual function are manifested in children born from pregnancy accompanied by Rh-conflict. Also, diseases of the hearing and vision organs are very often inherited if the parents or in the third generation have relatives with hearing loss, glaucoma, cataracts, congenital blindness or degeneration of the retina or optic nerve.
For when newborns begin to hear and see, see the next video.
