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What does a newborn baby see, hear and feel?
Medical expert of the article
Last reviewed: 08.07.2025
If a baby is born in a delivery room where the light is very bright, he closes his eyes tightly to avoid going blind. If he is born in a darkened room, he opens his eyes wide and begins to look around. The newborn sees objects best at a distance of 20 cm from him. He can hardly distinguish objects that are more distant, since he does not know how to adjust his vision to them. His eye movements are not yet coordinated, and you may think that he is developing strabismus. This is due to the fact that the muscles that ensure eye movement do not yet act in a coordinated manner. But this phenomenon will pass with time.
Normally, a child has good hearing. While in the womb, he could distinguish the voices of his mother and other family members. Therefore, after birth, the child immediately recognizes his mother's voice and calms down when he hears her kind words. He can even turn his head in the direction from which his voice is heard. Scientists have found that a child likes high frequencies more than low ones. Apparently, this remains with us on a subconscious level, since almost all of us, when talking to a child, try to speak in a higher voice.
Unlike adults, who navigate the world using their vision, a child perfectly recognizes the smells he needs. He can distinguish the smell of milk, recognizes his mother by her specific smell (and can unmistakably distinguish his mother from another woman, even a nursing one). It has been experimentally proven that if you wash toys from a child's smell, he loses interest in them.
Taste buds provide the newborn with a more complete perception of the external environment. There are four basic tastes: sweet, salty, sour and bitter, which in combination provide a full range of taste sensations. It has been experimentally proven that children like sweet more and salty much less. Thanks to this, a milk diet is provided (mother's milk is sweetish). But scientists have also found that if the mother ate spices, onions, garlic during pregnancy, the child will not refuse the breast if his mother eats these products and the milk has their taste and smell.