Week 36 :: Wee fingers o' steel

At this point, your baby is nearly six pounds in weight and just under 19 inches long, which means they have very little free space to wiggle about, although they're still plenty mobile as you're all too aware.

The countdown to your sweet lil' womb hi-jacker's eviction is closing in!

In fetal developments: most of the bones (soft skull aside) in their little body are now completely hardened, providing a solid structure from which they can now make their grand debut into the world.

In physical fitness news: your mini-champ's muscle tone is improving, and you’ll be impressed by their steel-like Ulnar grasp (a newborn reflex that occurs if you lay your finger in their palm).

Understanding Your Newborn

Despite being structurally ready for the real world, your baby and all humans are rather under-developed compared to most other mammals when they're born.

Not only will it take a newborn nearly a year to start walk, but they lack control over their muscles to the degree they can't control their eye's ability to focus on objects.

It will take your newborn nearly three months to gain control over their vision. This only makes the world even more confusing and frightening than it would otherwise be.

Infants cannot sit up or reach for a desired object, they're pretty much trapped inside their own helpless confused bodies. No wonder all they do is sleep and cry!

To top it all off, your sweet lil' sucker won't be able to properly hold up their own suddenly heavy bobble-head, as their neck muscles had little work to do when they were floating in amniotic fluid and being pressed upright by the snug muscular walls of your womb.

Your Newborn's World

When a newborn is first born, their world changes - from their snug womb-studio where they were cuddled constantly in a warm, relatively quiet, softly lit, simple moist little world, to a world that's jarringly bright and full of complex noisy creatures who grab at their body as they're handed from person to person.

So, it's no surprise that your newborn feels safest and happiest when they're snuggled against the warmth of your body hearing your familiar heartbeat and voice, as they take in the soothing scent of your skin.

First-time mothers are often surprised by how much their infant cries to be held and breastfed... but it makes sense if you think about it.

An infant has no idea that they're living in a safe modern world. For all they know, just behind the bassinet lurks a wild hungry creature (as there were before we had houses) waiting for the moment when they're alone and completely helpless against an attacker.

An infant is pure survival instinct because they have no ability to fend for themselves yet. They must rely on their mother to protect and nourish them - so mother's arms and breast = the safest happiest place in the universe.

The out-dated (and rather cruel) practice of crying it out (aka CIO aka training your infant not to cry when they're left alone) causes serious emotional distress that negatively impacts their brain development as chronically elevated stress hormones (that are released by extensive crying) can cause structural changes in their brain that have been correlated with learning and behavioral disorders.

Trust us, newborns could care less about their clothes, nurseries, toys, diapers, swings and such. All they want is to snuggle up against mama's warm body and breastfeed, while her scent and voice remind them of everything that's most familiar from their days in your womb.