Recognize Your Baby
It was long considered the new-born as blind. Today, these ideas are forgotten and experiments have even shown a sensitivity to light from the seventh month of intrauterine life. Although imperfect, the vision of the newborn is an inexhaustible exploration of the new world.
Early work on the vision of new-born are from the fifties. Robert Fantz thought the fascination with babies to new things should be considered as a kind of silent language.
Two distinct concepts
The study of vision in the newborn includes two different concepts:
* One hand what he sees;
* Secondly that expresses the “look” in the relationship of the newborn to its environment. This is the concept of “look-enchantment” of Ajuriaguerra.
Intrauterine life
In 1983, it was shown by ultrasound that the fetus’s eyes open in the amniotic fluid from the sixteenth week of intrauterine life. Moreover, exposure in the womb and a bright light flashing causes accelerated heart rate and agitation of their members. Seven months after its conception, the baby already seen.
Birth
The early stages of visionLe newborn is capable, at birth, fixation of gaze. It informs us about the existence in the baby, pupil reactions. The newborn can track an object through an arc of 90 ° (quarter circle). It also accompanies the eye-tracking of joint rotation of the head, provided that the stimulus is presented at a suitable distance and is sufficiently attractive (because of its contrast, its light intensity or its motion).
After the meal, the baby fed, calm, regular breathing, open his eyes sparkling over time more and longer. There are significant differences between children. Some babies are alive, others much more sleepy and less eye-catching look. Apart from external factors (such as the duration of labor, medications, etc..), It is likely that differential neural maturation intervenes largely.
Regarding accommodation, the curvature of the lens does not change depending on distance. The distance appears fixed at birth, about 18-20 cm. At the age of 3 months, the accommodation is excellent and even superior to that of adults. At 4 weeks, his eyes follow a toy that walks in front of him. At 6 weeks, he watches the people who move into the room. At 8 weeks, it follows a moving object on more than 90 ° and 12 weeks, it follows from one side to another. About 3 or 4 months, it catches the eye movements of objects in turning the head. At 6 months, he tries to see what interests by changing position. It was not until 12 months that the eye can follow an object moving fast.
The infant sees things relatively well mixed and very little remote. There are two tracks from a difference in light intensity of 5% while the adult gets only differences of 1 to 2%. The infant distinguishes the dish volume to 6-7 weeks and the difference between concave and convex to 10 weeks. From 4 months, infants see colors as the adult
Modern studies confirm that infants show a visual preference for the new images. It seems that infants who will subsequently delayed intellectual development have already capacity of visual selectivity lower and has shown that infants who show no preference for new images have more medical history (obstetric and postnatal complications) than those who show this preference.