Babies greet the world with open eyes, with open ears and with open arms. For many weeks in the uterus, your baby's eyes, ears and sense of touch have been practicing for this moment, and now these senses are ready to immediately begin their task of assimilating and reacting to the vast amount of new impressions awaiting him upon arrival. Babies put all their senses to work to get their bearings on their new environment.

Once your baby has taken his first breath or two, his eyes blink at all the bright light in the delivery room and he stares astounded by all the unfamiliar sights. Now his sense of vision suddenly becomes important for helping him become acquainted with his world. While his sense of hearing has been exposed to a great variety of sounds in the uterus and his sense of touch has been stimulated by contacts with his own body or the uterine wall, his visual system has been pretty much left in the dark until now.

A newborn baby sees faces as blurred figures surrounded by areas of light, and the baby's eyes can focus only on objects that are within about 8 to 30 inches. This is about the distance between a mother's face and that of her baby when she is holding him during feeding.

Newborns focus on strong lines and distinct contours. Studies have shown that they can tell the difference between the outline shapes of a triangle, square, circle, and cross. In human faces, the eyes and hairline are prominent features. Perhaps for this reason, mothers — and fathers — of newborn infants might think twice about changing their hairstyles too often.

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