Five shocking truths about your new baby

Posted on 27 February 2015

Whether you’re a dad-to-be or an expecting mother, there are many things no-one ever tells you about having a baby. Here are five favourites. 

Shocking truth #1: The first nappy
Your baby’s first nappies contain a substance known as meconium which is ‘the earliest stool of an infant … composed of materials ingested during the time the infant spends in the uterus: intestinal epithelial cell, lanugo, mucus, amniotic fluid, bile and water.’ Meconium is thick, black, sticky. Fortunately, quite soon your baby’s stools will turn to a soft yellow-brown colour.

Shocking truth #2: Newborns look nothing like the peachy infants on television 
For starters, fresh-from-the-womb babies are covered in a yellowy-white substance called vernix caseosa. It’s perfectly natural – and it looks like cottage cheese. (The Latin caseosa means ‘cheesy’.) Vernix caseosa is a waxy coating which keeps baby’s skin smooth and moisturised, and it helps the passage through the birth canal.

Shocking truth #3: Your baby has a soft part on their head 
It’s perfectly natural, but it can come as a shock if you’re not expecting it. Your baby’s skull isn’t completely formed – and between the skull plates are soft, membranous gaps which allow those plates to move around and fit together. Those gaps are called fontanelles and they allow the head to change shape to help it pass through the birth canal, and also allow the brain and skull to grow during an infant’s first year. The posterior fontanelle (at the back of the head) usually closes by the time baby is one to two months old. The anterior fontanelle (at the top of the head) usually closes within seven to 19 months.

Shocking truth #4: You’ll be waiting awhile before you can really play with your baby 
This harsh realisation tends to hit new dads the hardest when they suddenly hold a tiny fragile infant in their arms. New moms get the benefit of a heady cocktail of hormones, which are released at childbirth. And after all the months/years of waiting for a baby to arrive, it can be disappointing to discover that your baby’s eyes don’t fully focus for the first few weeks (so baby can’t see or react to the funny faces you’re pulling) and that babies spend the first three or four months sleeping, eating or crying to voice their needs…and then of course there’ll be plenty of nappies to change. But after a few months, you are rewarded with your first smiles which are only a few glimpses of all the fun you’ll have in the months, and years, to follow.

Shocking truth #5: Babies communicate by crying 
Sounds obvious, right? But you’ll need to remind yourself several times during your baby’s first few months. Baby will cry and sometimes you won’t have the foggiest idea what they’re crying about. Is your child teething? Hungry? Sleepy? Colicky? And baby will have no way of explaining it to you, except by crying a little harder. But when you eventually figure it out, you’ll feel like you’ve just won Gold at the Olympics.

The information provided in this article was correct at the time of publishing. At Mediclinic we endeavour to provide our patients and readers with accurate and reliable information, which is why we continually review and update our content. However, due to the dynamic nature of clinical information and medicine, some information may from time to time become outdated prior to revision.