Smiling Unborn Babies

[rynner2]

Evidence that unborn babies smile

An ultrasound scanner which shows enhanced pictures from inside the womb appears to reveal that unborn babies smile.

It has long been thought that babies do not smile until weeks after their birth, and then only after they learn the expression from their mothers.

But London obstetrician Professor Stuart Campbell has used the new scanning technology to capture images of foetuses smiling, crying, yawning and blinking.

Professor Campbell said: "It is remarkable that a newborn baby does not smile for about six weeks after birth. Before birth most babies smile frequently.

"This may indicate a baby's calm, trouble-free existence in the womb, and the relatively traumatic first few weeks after the birth, when the baby is reacting to a strange new environment."

 

[TheOriginalCujo]

That makes some sence to me. 'Aty' seemed to be facinated by rythm even before she was born and now she reacts very strongly to music.

 

[Yithian]

Before birth most babies smile frequently.

I'm not that surprised. Its such an idealic state most of us try our utmost to get back to it as closely as possible.

serious and inuendo-ridden comment made at once...

 

[escargot]

I've seen an X-ray of one of mine thumbsucking and they all hiccuped for hours.

They shoot about like tadpoles too- one of mine was known as 'that active baby' because the staff couldn't measure him as he moved around too much!
(That's one who was legally dead twice before he was born, who is now reading physics at Oxford!)

 

[Anonymous]

I'm not that surprised. Its such an idealic state most of us try our utmost to get back to it as closely as possible.

serious and inuendo-ridden comment made at once...

'You spend a nine months trying to get out and the rest of your life trying to get back in...'

 

[Spookyangel]

I find it quite worrying that birth is so stressful it shocks them out of smiling for 6 weeks. Maybe evolution will provide a more stress free solution eventually. The gooseberry bush looks more appealing all the time.

 

[rynner2]

I find it quite worrying that birth is so stressful it shocks them out of smiling for 6 weeks.

It is quite possible that what we see a pre-natal 'smiles' are not smiles as we understand them, but simply a part of the development of the foetus, just exercising all its muscles. (We know the little buggers frequently kick, for example, but we don't assume they are playing imaginery games of football!)

On a related note (I'm probably going to regret mentioning this!) I think that male morning erections are simply part of the waking up process, as the body runs though an equivalent of a pre-flight check list, making sure everything is working properly. They are not always associated with sexual feelings, but I had to laugh at a woman doctor I saw once on TV who claimed that they are merely the result of a full bladder!!! - I'm sure most blokes can recall times when they had a morning erection when they had passed water not long before. (Besides, if you need to pee, an erction is no help at all!)

Women doctors - what do they know, eh?

 

[Anonymous]

Babies do 'smile' before 6 weeks old but then we blame it on wind, could this not be the reason they are smiling in the womb?

The last scan I had for my youngest son was magical as they showed me his face as best they could, he was so beautifui I was convinced he was a girl which was rather a sexist thing to think in retrospect.

 

[Rrose_Selavy]

There is an anthropological theory that the smile in humans derives from the baring of teeth that say, chimpanzee's make with a superior of their species, as a sign of submission or to say " I am harmess to you" so it is a social act (although (we may smile with pleasure) ) it may well be that the unborn smile is indeed something else.

 

[Imperial_Call]

I wonder what effect this new technology will have on the pro/anti abortion debate??? Just a pile of skin cells eh?

 

[Anonymous]

The scans are of babies quite far gone into the pregnancy.

I saw the pictures on TV, I have kids, I'm still pro-abortion.

 

[Anonymous]

The scans are of babies quite far gone into the pregnancy.

I saw the pictures on TV, I have kids, I'm still pro-abortion.

What? Abort everybody?

 

[Anonymous]

It's tempting sometimes.......

But Lobelia has a point that the pictures of a smiling baby can, and probably will, be used by the anti-abortion lobby. It's when the babies born unwanted into poverty or neglect or just resented that the anti-abortion lobby are conspicious by their absence.

 

[Imperial_Call]

I don't want to get into a(nother) arguement about pro and anti abortion, what I meant was there are people who talk about abortions like it's a trip to the hairdresser or somesuch and "everyone's doing it!" Y'see I knew someone who had an abortion, because all her pals had had one and she didn't want to be the "odd one out". Apparently on what should have been her due date, she got quite hysterical ...

 

[Anonymous]

There is an anthropological theory that the smile in humans derives from the baring of teeth that say, chimpanzee's make with a superior of their species, as a sign of submission or to say " I am harmess to you" so it is a social act (although (we may smile with pleasure) ) it may well be that the unborn smile is indeed something else.

That is about right; we smile to show that we are non-threatening; children smile so that we don't kill them and eat them.
Unborn babies smile to practice this ingratiating social signal.