Chapter 3: Birth and the Newborn Infant

Fetal Monitor

--devices that measure the baby's heartbeat during labor, have contributed to soaring rates of cesarean deliveries, up 500 percent from 1970s and has several criticisms.

Infant Mortality

--is defined as death within the first year of life. -- Still Birth: is the delivery of a child who is not alive and occurs in less than 1 delivery in 100.

Postmature Infants

--those still unborn two weeks after the mother's due date, face several risks. 1. Blood supply to baby brain may decrease and cause brain damage 2. Labor and delivery become more difficult.

Operant Conditioning

a form of learning in which a voluntary response is strengthened or weakened, depending on its association with positive or negative consequences, functions from the earliest days of life.

Respiratory Distress Syndrome (RDS)

--Premature infants, because they have poorly developed lungs. They are put into incubators, which is oxygen and temperature controlled.

Cesarean Delivery

--where the baby is surgically removed from the uterus, rather than traveling through the birth canal. 1. Fetal distress 2. Breech Position: where the baby is positioned feet first in the birth canal 3. Transverse Position: in which the baby lies crosswise in the uterus. 4. Baby has a large head

Preterm Infants

--who are born prior to 38 weeks after conception (also known as premature infants), are at high risk for illness and death. 1. Average newborn weight is 7.5 pounds 2. Low Birth-weight Infants; weigh less than 5.5 pounds 3. Only 7% of newborns in U.S. are low weight, they account the majority of newborns death 4. Small-for-gestational-age infants: because of delayed fetal growth, weigh 90 percent or less than average weight of infants of the same gestational age.

Social Competence

1. Infants have the ability to imitate others. 2. Infants can differentiate between such basic facial expressions as happiness, sadness, and surprise. 3. Newborns cycle through various STATES OF AROUSAL, different degrees of sleep and wakefulness ranging from deep sleep to great agitation.

Physical Competence

1. Reflexes, are unlearned, organized, and involuntary responses that occur automatically in the presence of certain stimuli a) Sucking and swallowing reflexes permit the neonate to ingest food. b) Rooting reflex, which involves the turning in the direction of a source of stimulation near the mouth, guides the infant to the breast and nipple. 2. The newborn's digestive system produces meconium, a greenish black material that is a remnant of the neonate's days as a fetus. 3.Because their livers do not work efficiently, many newborns develop neonatal jaundice, a yellowish tint to their bodies and eyes.

Sensory Capabilities

1.Infants' visual and auditory systems are not yet fully developed. a) They can see levels of contrast and brightness. b) They can tell size consistency and distinguish colors. c) They react to sudden sounds and recognize familiar sounds. 2. They are sensitive to touch. 3. Their senses of taste and smell are well developed.

Developmental Diversity: Overcoming Racial and cultural Differences in Infant Mortality

African American babies are twice as likely to die before the age of 1 as white babies. 1. this may be the result of socioeconomic factors such as poverty which results in poor prenatal care. 2. The overall infant mortality rate in the U.S. is higher than the rate in many countries. a) The U.S. has a higher rate of low-birthweight and preterm deliveries. b) The U.S. has more people living in poverty who are less likely to get adequate medical care. c) Other countries do a better job providing prenatal care at low cost and even free. d) The percentage of pregnant women in the U.S. who receive no prenatal care has increased in the 1990s. e) Free or inexpensive health care and basic education could reduce these problems.

Classical Conditioning

a type of learning in which an organism responds in a particular way to a neutral stimulus that normally does not bring about that type of response, underlies the learning of both pleasurable and undesired responses in the newborn.

Three factors limit the success of learning during infancy.

a) The behavioral state the infant must be in a sufficiently attentive state to sense, perceive, and recognize relationships between stimuli and responses. b) Natural constraints not all behaviors are physically possible for an infant. c) Motivational constraints the response involved must not be so taxing on infants that they simply are unmotivated to respond.

Causes of preterm and low-birthweight deliveries

a) multiple births b) young mothers (under age 15) c) too closely spaced births d) general health and nutrition of mother e) African-American mothers have double the number of low-birthweight babies that Caucasian mothers do.

Habituation

the decrease in the response to a stimulus that occurs after repeated presentations of the same stimulus, is probably the most primitive form of learning and occurs in every sensory system of the infant.

Very-low-birthweight infants

weigh less than 1,250 grams (2 1/4 pounds) and, regardless of weight, have been in the womb less than 30 weeks and are in grave danger because of the immaturity of their organ systems. --Medical Advances have pushed, Age of Viability,or point at which an infant can survive a premature birth, to about 24 weeks.