Newborn care

Just as it is often said that children get "badly used" to arms, an absolutely ridiculous idea when you understand the basic needs of a baby, along the same lines, many people have been saying for years that babies can manipulate their parents.

When the baby is born, there are so many contradictory advice that parents receive from relatives, friends and even strangers, that we can become confused to the point of losing confidence in our ability to care for them.

You are pregnant (or your wife is), there is little left for the baby to arrive and you are not very clear how it will be. You have seen babies before, from your friends, from your co-workers and even on TV. The problem is that those who go out in the movies and those you see on the street are already a few days old, if not weeks, and the appearance is very different from what a baby has in the first hours or days.

Amber Cumberland from Aston, Oxfordshire, UK, is 21 years old and has just become a mother for the first time. One more happy news if it weren't for the fact that the young woman gained 30 kilos during her pregnancy and had such a large belly that doctors thought that two babies were growing instead of one and that the one seen on the ultrasound covered the presence of the other.

Throughout the pregnancy, the baby's respiratory system is being formed until the complete maturation of the lungs around week 36 or 37.

Bathing is one of the most special moments to enjoy with your baby. In fact, it is usually the preferred time of day for most parents. But it is normal at first to feel fearful and insecure when bathing your newborn.

Only one in five to six million boys is born with more than one penis, and there are only 100 cases of diphalia (two penises) recorded worldwide. And scientists remain puzzled about the cause of supernumerary penises - technical name for extra limbs - whose first case was recorded in the seventeenth century.

Just a day ago we knew of the first case in the world of antibodies against the coronavirus detected in the umbilical cord blood of a baby born to a mother immunized with Moderna's vaccine three weeks earlier. That already made researchers suspect that vaccinating pregnant women during pregnancy is effective in protecting their children as well.