The New Father. Armin A. Brott

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СКАЧАТЬ screenings required by your state at www.babysfirsttest.org/newborn-screening/states.) The good news is that all of those tests can be done from the same sample, a few drops of blood taken from your baby’s heel immediately after the birth.

      HEARING TESTS

About 1 in 1,000 healthy babies and 2 in 100 in intensive care units have hearing loss. If the loss is caught during newborn screenings, babies can be fitted with hearing aids that can help prevent speech and language problems. If it’s not caught early, it might not be evident until age two or three and will be far harder to deal with. The tests are safe, quick, and painless; in fact, babies usually sleep right through them.

      HEART TESTS

      About 9 in 1,000 babies are born with some kind of congenital heart disease. Doctors use a non-invasive test called pulse oximetry to check your baby’s heart rate and the levels of oxygen in her blood. The goal is to flag a group of heart conditions called Critical Congenital Heart Disease (CCHD), which can include abnormal heart rhythms and potentially dangerous structural problems. Caught early, many CCHDs can be treated and babies can lead relatively normal lives.

      GETTING TO KNOW YOU

      “Most people make babies out to be very complicated,” says comedian Dave Barry, “but the truth is they have only three moods: Mood One: Just about to cry. Mood Two: Crying. Mood Three: Just finished crying. Your job, as a parent, is to keep the baby in Mood Three as much as possible.” With just a few days of fatherhood under your belt, you may be inclined to go along with Barry’s summary. But the real truth is that babies’ moods are a bit more subtle.

      Babies actually have six clearly defined behavioral states that are apparent within just a few minutes after their birth. In my first few weeks of fatherhood, I found that learning about these six states—which were explained to me by Dr. Marshall Klaus, coauthor of The Amazing Newborn—was absolutely critical to my getting to know my babies. Here’s a summary of the six states, based on Dr. Klaus’s book.

      QUIET ALERT

      Within the first hour of life, most healthy infants have a period of quiet alertness that lasts an average of forty minutes, and during her first week, she’ll spend about 10 percent of any twenty-four-hour period in this state. Babies in quiet alert mode rarely move—all their energy is channeled into seeing, hearing, and absorbing information about their new world. They can (and do) follow objects with their eyes and may even imitate your facial expressions. That’s when it’ll first hit you that there’s a real person inside that tiny body.

      ACTIVE ALERT

      In the active alert state, the baby will make small sounds and move her arms, head, body, face, and eyes frequently and actively. Her movements usually come in short bursts—a few seconds of thrashing around every minute or two. Some researchers say these movements are designed to give parents subtle clues about what the baby wants and needs. Others say they’re just interesting to watch, and therefore promote parent-infant interaction. Either way, the active alert state is a great time to do physical things with your baby—we’ll talk about what, exactly, that means in the “You and Your Baby” sections throughout the rest of this book.

      CRYING

      Crying is a perfectly natural—and for some, all-too-frequent—state (for more on this, see pages 66–70). Your infant’s eyes may be open or closed, her face red, and her arms and legs moving vigorously. (Don’t be surprised if you don’t see any tears: newborns’ tear ducts often don’t function for the first week or two after delivery. When the tears finally do kick in, though, they’ll break your heart.)

      Often just picking her up and walking around with her will stop the crying. Interestingly, researchers used to think that babies were soothed by being held or rocked in the upright position. It turns out, though, that what makes them stop crying is not being upright, but the movement that gets them there.

      Keep in mind, too, that crying is not a bad thing—it not only allows the baby to communicate but is also a good workout. So if your efforts to calm aren’t immediately successful (and the baby isn’t hungry or stewing in a dirty diaper), don’t worry; chances are she’ll settle down by herself in a few minutes.

      DROWSINESS

      Drowsiness is a transition state that occurs as the baby is waking up or falling asleep. There may still be some movement, but the eyes will often look dull or unfocused. Leave her alone to drift off to sleep or move into one of the alert stages.

      QUIET SLEEP

      During quiet sleep, the baby’s face is relaxed and her eyelids are closed and still. Her body is almost completely motionless, with only tiny, almost imperceptible mouth movements.

      When your baby is in this state, you may be alarmed at the lack of movement and be afraid she has stopped breathing. If so, lean as close as you can and listen for her breath. Otherwise, gently put a hand on her stomach (she should be sleeping on her back—for information on why this is so important, see page 104) and feel it rise and fall. Try to resist the urge to wake the baby up—in fact, do not wake up a sleeping baby unless your pediatrician has told you otherwise. Instead, use the time to post the latest pics or catch a few Zs yourself.

ACTIVE SLEEP

      Eyes are usually closed, but may occasionally flicker open. The baby may also smile or frown, make sucking or chewing movements, and even whimper or twitch—just as adults do in their active sleep state.

      Half of a baby’s sleep time is spent in quiet sleep, the other half in active sleep, with the two states alternating in thirty-minute shifts. So if your sleeping baby starts to stir, makes a few crying noises, or seems to be waking up unhappy, wait a few seconds before you pick her up to feed, change, or hold. Left alone, she may well slip back into the quiet sleep state.

      Newborn babies are capable of a lot more than crying, sleeping, filling their diapers, and looking around. Just a few hours out of the womb, they are already trying to communicate with those around them.

      Marshall Klaus told me about playing a game with an eight-hour-old girl in which he asked one colleague (who was a stranger to the baby) to stick out her tongue slowly while holding the baby. After a few seconds, the baby imitated the woman. Then Dr. Klaus took the baby and passed her around to twelve other doctors and nurses who were participating in the game, all of whom were told not to stick their tongues out. When the baby finally came back to the first doctor, the baby—without any prompting—immediately stuck out her tongue again. Even at just a few hours old, she had apparently remembered her “friend.”

      Interacting with Your Baby

      Although it may be tempting just to sit and stare at your baby, marveling at every little thing she does, you’ll need to do a lot more than that if you’re really going to develop a relationship with her. Here are some of the best ways to get to know your baby:

      • Hold her. Newborns love to be held and carried around. If you can, take off your shirt—skin-to-skin contact helps warm the baby, and you’ll love it too. It’s perfectly fine for you to lie down on your back and let the baby nap face down on your chest. But remember, this is the only time that she should sleep on her tummy.

      • Talk to her. No, she can’t understand a word you’re saying. In fact, she barely even knows you exist. But talk to her anyway—explain everything you’re doing, tell her СКАЧАТЬ