If you've ever needed more reasons to relax, take it easy and have fun during pregnancy, here's a good one: there's a chance your baby's personality may be shaped by your activities and emotions. That's because personality, many researchers believe, starts to form in utero.
Once hormonal and birth influences subside, at about four months, you may start to get a sense of your baby's personality. By then, you and your baby will probably have settled into a pattern of nurture and playtime. But this is only the start of a very long journey.
When you are pregnant, your baby is exposed to everything you experience. This includes the sounds in the environment, the air you breathe, the food you eat and the emotions you feel. When you feel happy and calm, it allows your baby to develop in a happy, calm environment.
With time, infant temperament becomes more and more significant. Although infant temperament with its different facets is not the only predictor of a child's future personality, the two are certainly interconnected. Studies show that infant temperament can predict later personality.
Genetics, family, friends and society all influence personality development. You can help your child by adapting your behaviour and requests to her temperament. Physical characteristics come from a combination of several genes.
Some Traits Are Inherited
As far as why kids are sometimes exactly like or nothing like their parents, Bressette says studies show that personality traits can be inherited. “There are five traits that have a link to personality: extraversion, neuroticism, agreeableness, conscientiousness and openness.”
Do you have a fussy baby? Chances are your bub will end up with a higher IQ than his or her peers, claims a study. A study by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Study of Early Child Care claims that fussy babies are much more responsive to their parents and this can actually be an advantage.
Babies are drawn to attractive people
A baby may be staring at you because they think you're beautiful. We're not kidding! A decades-old experiment found that newborns and young infants spent more time staring at faces that adults deemed attractive.
tion the infants looked longer at the attractive faces. These findings are clear evidence that newborn infants use information about internal facial features in making prefer- ences based on attractiveness.
You're right in thinking that 30,000 genes or more is a lot of material to mix and match. Countless combinations are possible, which is why it's not always easy to predict exactly what your baby will look like. Still, because of how genes work, it's possible to make predictions that are somewhat accurate.
Most recently, some studies are suggesting that stress in the womb can affect a baby's temperament and neurobehavioral development. Infants whose mothers experienced high levels of stress while pregnant, particularly in the first trimester, show signs of more depression and irritability.
Baby may start to know when their father is touching mom's belly. Babies can sense touch from anyone, but they can also sense when touch (and voice) is familiar. And by 24 weeks into pregnancy, dad can usually feel baby kick – but the exact time varies.
Can crying and depression affect an unborn baby? Having an occasional crying spell isn't likely to harm your unborn baby. More severe depression during pregnancy, however, could possibly have a negative impact on your pregnancy.
Human infants, just a few days of age, are known to prefer attractive human faces. We examined whether this preference is human-specific. Three- to 4-month-olds preferred attractive over unattractive domestic and wild cat (tiger) faces (Experiments 1 and 3).
Some studies have even found that newborns tend to resemble their mothers more than their fathers. In a 1999 study published in Evolution & Human Behavior, French and Serge Brédart of the University of Liège in Belgium set out to replicate the paternal-resemblance finding and were unable to do so.
They Are Curious About the World Around Them
Babies are fascinated by the things, movements, or sounds around them as they're experiencing or witnessing them for the first time. Their brain develops as they take in the new sights and they're studying their surroundings that's why they stare.
And research suggests that babies evaluate people in much the same way, preferring people who like the same foods, clothes, and toys that they like. This preference helps us to form social bonds, but it can also have a dark side.
Babies inherit multiple pairs of genes from each parent that play a role in appearance. These genes determine hair color as well as eye color and complexion. And although scientists have yet to determine how many genes ultimately determine the exact color of a child's hair, they do understand how the process works.
Research Confirms This
According to UK researcher Dr. Alan Slater, babies prefer to look at attractive faces, just like adults. In a study he conducted at the University of Exeter, Dr.
A study done in the U.K. showed that May is the luckiest month to be born, and October is the unluckiest. It could have something to do with that optimism, since positive attitudes have been associated with greater resilience.
All men inherit a Y chromosome from their father, which means all traits that are only found on the Y chromosome come from dad, not mom. The Supporting Evidence: Y-linked traits follow a clear paternal lineage.
While each parent technically contributed half of an offspring's genome, approximately 60 percent of the dad's genes were more expressive than the mom's. These epigenetic factors can play a role in numerous parts of your life, but they aren't just about quirks like eye color or whether or not you can roll your tongue.
Babies often prefer their primary caregiver
Most babies naturally prefer the parent who's their primary caregiver, the person they count on to meet their most basic and essential needs. This is especially true after 6 months when separation anxiety starts to set in.