The Wonder Of Having A Baby

As human beings, we fall in the process called "habituation". After being exposed for a long time to a certain stimulus or a certain situation, we get used to it and it no longer presents any interest. The same thing happened to the miracle of having a baby. People tend to take it as a fact and they just wait patiently for the outcome, the newborn creature. They are not as marveled by what happens inside the uterus and by the unique process that takes place during the nine months of pregnancy.

The prenatal period lasts from the moment of conception till approximately the 38th week, when most of the mothers give birth to their babies. The conception itself takes place inside the fallopian tube, where the nucleus of the ovule merges with the nucleus of the sperm, resulting in a zygote. The zygote starts to migrate towards the uterus, and usually, this process lasts for 6 days. After those six days, in which the mitosis takes place and the zygote reaches almost 100 cells, the connection between the maternal organism and the little creature is made for the first time, by the process of implantation in the wall of the uterus. This moment triggers some hormonal modifications in the mother's body which signal the pregnancy's existence.

This period is also called the germinal period and it is followed by the embryonic period which begins by the end of the second week. The zygote turns into an embryo, whose cells are already specialized and they begin to form the vital organs, the epidermis, the hair, the nails, the nervous system, and so on. By the end of the eighth week all the organs are being formed and the brain is the one coordinating the activity. The heart starts to beat in the forth week , the facial features begin to take shape by week seven and the head is one half of the length of the body.

The last period, the one between the weeks 9 and 38, is best described by the verbs refine and individualize; all the structures and the organs are being refined and the process of growing is accelerated, this period represents the maximum physical growth rate in the entire lifetime. The uniqueness of each baby is given by the specific pattern of sleep and wakefulness, by their favorite positions in the uterus and by their specific level of activism.

By the 6th month of pregnancy the baby can already survive outside the maternal body, this is due to the layer of fat under the skin that helps the baby adjust his body temperature. The problems that could appear in this situation are caused by the fact that the lungs are completely developed only starting with the eighth month.

Furthermore, in the following last 2 months the baby begins to close and open his eyes, his breathing becomes regular for longer and longer periods, and his body is covered by vernix, a substance that helps the baby to stay in the meiotic liquid.

The 9th month, a week before the moment of birth is triggered, the baby stops his growth at approximately 50 cm and 3kg and 200 g.

During the time the fetus spends inside the uterus he does not only develop physically, but also mentally. Scientist observed that babies, like adults, have REM type of sleep, meaning they dream. The subject of dreams is almost impossible to be known, but this demonstrates the baby has mental activity. He can be also stimulated by human voices, especially by the voice of the mother. In addition they have different types of behavior: they are moving and this thing is very important because it is a proof of health of the nervous system and they have reflexes. They also imitate the bipedal walk on the walls of the uterus, they shake their feet and hands, they touch their hands, their faces and the uterus. Between 90 and 95 % of the day they are calm, having different types of sleep: REM sleep, profound sleep, and an intermediary state between being awake and being asleep. Their reflexes are: yawning, blinking, imitating walking, swallowing and urinating.

Concluding, the fact of having a baby and especially his development is indeed an extraordinary phenomenon and it should always make us stop and wonder at the human complexity and the intelligence of its design!