Baby Meets World: Suck, Smile, Touch, Toddle: A Journey Through Infancy

rooting—the way an infant sweeps his head back and forth in search of the nipple. It classically goes by the term “rooting reflex” and it

treatise on childhood diseases from the turn of the century is matter-of-fact about it: “Infants who persist in the habit of sucking always become masturbators.” What were these infants sucking? Their thumbs. Such habits in infancy were said to be the seeds of adult delinquency. Mothers

Everyone knew that this other child existed: books on how to choose a wet nurse actually advised parents to verify the health of a candidate by examining her newborn. A mother without a healthy infant had no credentials; her milk was automatically suspect. It was rare to hire a wet nurse whose baby had died. Her baby was supposed to die after she w

But when someone else touches their face, they root frantically. A true reflex wouldn’t discriminate between these situations: both would produce the same response. The fact that newborns have different responses suggests that they have a primitive sense of self: they can distinguish between what they do and what someone else does.