Asked by: Aruna Anhi, Leicester
Actually, not all babies cry with their first breath after being born. But all babies will cry within a few seconds if they are not immediately reunited with their mother. This is a simple adaptation that makes it less likely that they will get overlooked.
In fact, there is some evidence that baby cries have specifically evolved to be as annoying and hard to ignore as possible. Beyond the first few minutes of life and their first feed, neonatal infants may cry because they are bruised and sore from the trauma of birth, but generally the process is so exhausting for them that they will sleep for the next eight hours or so.
Make the most of it because that's the longest uninterrupted stretch of quiet you'll get for the next six months.
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