Of course I tell you that I do not agree with this research, because for me my newborn babies, so all wrinkles, red and swollen were the most beautiful in the world. Of course, at six months they still were. But it is true that there are many people who consider that newborn babies are ugly, or not so cute to say it more smoothly. (Probably not parents).
The issue is that, according to science, adults see babies more beautiful when they are already a few months old, specifically at six months of age, than newborns. Do you agree?
A study published in the scientific journal Evolution and Human Behavior concludes that Newborns' faces are less attractive for adults and that behind this perception there could be a matter of survival.
In Babies and more Babies can tell good people from bad months from six monthsIn their study involving 142 people, the researchers showed photos of 18 babies taken shortly after birth, at three months of age and at six months of age. They were asked how willing they would be to adopt babies based on their perceptions of the tenderness, happiness, health and similarity of the children.
"We note that adults rated newborns as the least attractive and six-month-olds scored highest on all facial cues," says Prarthana Franklin of Brock University and co-author of the study.
Survival theory
The researchers wanted to find out where this preference might come from. In the 1940s, ethologist Konrad Lorenz coined the term "kinderschema"or" children's scheme "to describe the features of the little ones. According to his theory, the tenderness that a baby arouses activates the behavior of parenting and caring for adults, which in turn guarantees the survival of babies.
Initially, he and his research team were surprised to discover that adults' perception of tenderness intensifies six months after babies are born, since, a priori, the little ones would be the most "achuchables" and in need of protection For being more helpless.
But then, compiling medical literature, they found that six-month-old children are better able to survive disease that smaller babies and it is likely that the perception of tenderness is a remnant adaptation of the times of evolution, when resources were scarce and childhood diseases were fatal.
"The hunter-gatherers who already had a child they were breastfeeding could not breastfeed two children at the same time," said Brock University study co-author Tony Volk. If you are a peasant mother in medieval England and you only have enough food for one child, and if having two means that both will die, it is best to have a child. These are difficult decisions that humans have made for thousands of years, "explains the scientist.
Fortunately, times have changed.
This survival theory also adds that it takes a few months for babies to start interacting with adults, give us their first smile and respond with gestures to our stimuli, which could increase preference for older babies in front of newborns.
What do you think about it? Do you see newborn babies as cute as older ones?
