
Why Don't Babies Smile from Birth? - sukhadatkeereo
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/why-dont-babies-smile-from-birth/
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jonmc12
The author's implied premise that a smile is a universal form of emotional
expression vs a cultural adaptation was presented in the Darwin paper he
cited: "The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals". Interestingly, a
2012 paper tested this hypothesis:

"In sum, our data directly show that across cultures, emotions are expressed
using culture-specific facial signals. Although some basic facial expressions
such as fear and disgust (2) originally served as an adaptive function when
humans “existed in a much lower and animal-like condition” (ref. 1, p. 19),
facial expression signals have since evolved and diversified to serve the
primary role of emotion communication during social interaction. As a result,
these once biologically hardwired and universal signals have been molded by
the diverse social ideologies and practices of the cultural groups who use
them for social communication."

"Facial expressions of emotion are not culturally universal",
[http://www.pnas.org/content/109/19/7241](http://www.pnas.org/content/109/19/7241)

~~~
ardit33
Alas, the ability to smile is something that is innate, and some babies do
smile right after birth. (rare, but it happens), but it is not necessary tied
to emotional content.

"Neonatal smiling occurs from birth to one month of age and shows no emotional
content. Smiles are spontaneous and often occur while the baby is drowsy or
during REM stages of sleep. Baby smiles are subcortical in origin and will
actually decrease with maturity (so premature babies smile more than full-term
babies)."

Also there is proof that babies seems to be able to smile even though they are
uborn/ still in the womb, which means the ability to smile is a universal
human trait that is culture independent.

[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-196020/Babies-
smil...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-196020/Babies-smile-
womb.html)

~~~
skywhopper
The ability to smile is not necessarily connected to the meaning of a smile,
though. The article seems to assume a connection between smiling and happiness
that isn't necessarily supported. (A good explanation of such a connection
would need to contrast it to other aspects of communication which we don't
question the cultural basis for.)

~~~
seanmcdirmid
> The ability to smile is not necessarily connected to the meaning of a smile,
> though.

Pediatricians call it a "social smile", and it is an important milestone in
newborn development. See [https://www.webmd.com/parenting/baby/babys-first-
social-smil...](https://www.webmd.com/parenting/baby/babys-first-social-
smile).

Evolutionary, I think the intention is to bring parents further under the
baby's spell, since otherwise they might give up because taking care of a baby
is a lot of work!

~~~
myth_drannon
More than parents which are attached to the child with hormones, the smile is
for the strangers so they do not harm them. At some stage babies smile all the
time to strangers. That's before they get older and understand the concept of
parents vs strangers.

~~~
stevekemp
Our baby is a fascinating example of this - every time he sees a stranger he
makes a big smile.

He seems to just love people, and because of his big eyes and big smile it is
rare that I can take him shopping, or for a walk, without at least one
stranger talking to me about how happy he looks.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
Ya, same here, though it seems to be tapering off after 1.

------
paulhart
Because the two most magical things in the early stages of parenthood are:

* when the baby consciously smiles at you for the first time (they will often smile in their sleep, but that's "only" cute);

* when the baby laughs for the first time - doing something that's funny enough to them for them to vocalize their pleasure can be a challenge!

Disclaimer / anecdata source: once-again father, four month old.

~~~
duxup
Both my kids took forever to smile it seemed.

Like you said though they'd smile and even laugh in their sleep all the
time... but then when awake all business / serous.

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jxramos
I thought I recalled reading in the past that babies actually can't see very
far in the newborn stages. The fact that the areola and nipple are super high
contrast to the surrounding skin and whose dimensions are optimally situated
for a babies focal length is a mark of that. Scent and sound play large roles
in the early stages. Our baby would respond to her siblings voices since she's
heard and played with them since in utero. It would make sense that the most
capable sense would develop more utility. I recall reading a story where a
musician was said to have dived into a new body of work to study some cello
concerto or something he's never been exposed to or learned before. But as he
dived into it he found it all so strangely familiar. He brought that up to his
mother of this strange dejavu like experience and she had then told him that
when he was in the womb she was vigorously mastering that piece herself.

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azakai
> “Being happy requires a fair amount of self-referential thinking, whereas
> being in pain or being unhappy doesn’t require that in the same way,” he
> suggested. “To be happy, you have to know that you’re happy.

This doesn't seem right at all. Just like pain doesn't require self-
referential thinking, neither should pleasure.

------
fet
My sons only smiled when they were sleeping, and presumably dreaming, until
they were about 6 months. But they smiled while they were sleeping since birth
(4 or 5 days old technically).

When they finally did smile while awake it was at a stuffed monkey.

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grondilu
> Their facial muscles work fine, but the neural networks that let them
> recognize the feeling of happiness take a while to develop

I like it when an article has a TL,DR; as a subtitle.

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dvt
Here's (another) SA article[1] that seems to somewhat counter the claims found
here; namely, that joy, laughter, and humor are not "culturally adapted" but
built into our neural correlates. This is a famous (and ground-breaking) study
conducted by Jaak Panksepp[2].

Maybe smiling _is_ culturally-specific, but laughter certainly isn't. I'm not
sure if there's much of a difference between the two -- to me it seems to be a
difference of intensity (of emotion) and not a difference in kind.

[1] [https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/rats-laugh-but-
no...](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/rats-laugh-but-not-like-
human/)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaak_Panksepp](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaak_Panksepp)

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emmelaich
Sorta related, the Still Face Experiment is one of the most disturbing things
I've seen on the internet.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apzXGEbZht0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apzXGEbZht0)

The disturbing part goes from about 1:00 to 2:00.

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rotrux
> "Why Don't Babies Smile from Birth?":

 __ _Answer:_ __Because!! Imagine how horrific that would be if you were aware
in any capacity whatsoever.

 __ _Longer Answer:_ __Ok so let 's make some prly pretty inaccurate
assumptions & imagine you're aware the second water breaks. You're about to
join us other flesh-bags in the land of taxes, internet, and really
unrealistic expectations.

Your eyes, first of all, exist. They are also not opening which is prly good
cuz like SIGHT MAN?! WHO ARE ALL THESE MOVING THINGS WHAT?! Also you're
covered in about as viscous a human-juice as exists. Technically men have a
more viscous one which used to be half of you but like ok moving on...

No body said "hey baby, you're about to get borned right now." Naturally this
means stuff's about to change & even though maybe it's a little bit cramped or
whatever, you're kinda warm in here.

K so best-case now, no C-Section necessary. Your whole universe starts to open
up above you while the likely epic blood-curdling screams of your future Mom
start to percolate themselves into...oh what's this?...A BRAND NEW SENSATION
CALLED HEARING WHAT IS THIS?!

K so then you crest. If dad's around he's probably terrified of you because
you look like an alien + the aforementioned Mom-labor-screams. Well and like I
said your eyes are welded closed, but you prly still know: babies are psychic
according to science.

But I digress. Babies prly (at least partially) don't smile from birth for the
same reason you wouldn't.

~~~
mirimir
Indeed, aka birth trauma. You're getting squeezed by very powerful muscles
through a small opening. Especially if you end up coming out butt first. Your
lungs are full of fluid, and you gotta expel that before you can breathe. So
yeah, I can't imagine that it's much fun.

------
kelukelugames
Babies do smile at birth. It's a reflex smile. They don't start smiling for
real until 1+ months.

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buu700
Anecdotal: apparently I stopped crying and started smiling when I was
introduced to my mom, which the doctors found unusual.

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drpgq
I wonder at what age kids start to display non-Duchenne smiles.

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reaperducer
> Why Don't Babies Smile from Birth?

Have you SEEN a birth? Now imagine being on the other side of the equation!
It's amazing we aren't all born with PTSD.

~~~
moreira
What if we are? After all, how would we know what a human who hasn't gone
through birth would be like?

~~~
ytwySXpMbS
What about Caesarean sections?

~~~
waster
C-section can have its own traumas. For months after being born, my
(c-section-born) son would startle and cry horribly at anything that made a
snick-snick scissors sound, including certain doors/doorknobs, metal
chopsticks, etc. And think of it from the evolutionary perspective and the
baby-being-born perspective (vs. our external perspective, birthing or
watching/helping), and maybe we can posit shock at the transitions that happen
with a c-section (inside, cozy and familiar, and then BOOM: Cold! Bright! Lack
of pressure! Loud!).

~~~
andrewaylett
We had music playing while our eldest was being delivered by caesarean, and
for several months afterwards she'd cry whenever we played it.

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IncRnd
Another thought is that babies knowledge of the world is want and pain. Give
them a break. They want to go back to the pleasant place they just came from.

