Physical development of the newborn
After birth, a newborn will lose between 5-10% of their birth weight. This loss is important during the first 24 or 36 hours, then lower to stop the 4th or 5th day. Then it will recover gradually birth weight.
The weight and size
From the moment baby has regained his birth weight (around the 8th day), weight gain is on average 25 to 30 g per day during the first three months. The weight curve is not perfectly regular. It may take a day and then 10 g 45 g tomorrow. In order not to shake, baby weighed twice a week is sufficient, except in cases of diarrhea, fever.
In general, the newborn weighing 3500 g at birth twice the weight at 6 months. However, this rule is only valid for a newborn mean birth weight.
The steady growth in size is a good indicator of the health of your baby and the absence of severe disease. Baby takes on average 3 cm in the first month. Baby will grow by an average of 25 cm in the first year.
Holding the head
At birth, your baby's neck is soft and her head dangling. It is therefore very important to support when you take the baby in your arms. Similarly, the baby's skull is malleable to allow the head make its way through the genital tract.
The skull bones may overlap slightly because it is not yet completely ossified, and this feature allows the growth of the brain triple in volume during the first year.
It is therefore prudent not to put pressure on this part of the skull called fontanels. Moms know especially the anterior fontanelle, the larger rhombic area about 3 cm long and 3 cm wide located on the top of the skull behind the forehead.
Psychomotor development
Motor development of the child depends on the evolution of the skeleton, musculature, nervous system and maturation of his senses. But also, in large part, to the evolution of its global expertise.
Because its development is as much about the head, the legs, it is called psychomotor. Psychomotor development therefore covers both motor skills and cognitive learning (with respect to knowledge).
Many factors involved in the development of the baby, both genetic and environmental. His heredity, his place in the siblings, the educational choices of his parents, his natural environment (city, country). All these factors will combine to influence your baby.
Every baby is a person with a personal style and rhythm, each child sets its own priorities, focusing on the movement for some, for others on the grip.
The first acquisitions succeed in a specific order, head to the member. Indeed, baby starts to hold his head and back muscles and strengthen arms before those legs baby holds his head, then sits up, then uses his hands on. Finally, you should know that baby progresses in stages, as it did not equate an acquisition, it does not pass to the next.