Babies Facts

About 250 babies are born worldwide every minute—that's roughly four new humans entering the world every single second.

Babies who are actively crawling can cover around 200 meters (over 650 feet) in a day during their mobile periods.

Babies cry but they don't produce tears until one to three months after birth.

Babies are born with around 270-300 bones, but adults have only 206. The difference? Many bones fuse together as we grow.

Parrot parents "name" their children with a signature call.

Newborns can barely see color when they're born, seeing mostly in black, white, and shades of gray, but they develop full color vision by about 5 months old.

Babies start dreaming even before they're born.

Babies that are breastfed are more likely to be slimmer as adults than those that are not breastfed.

Infants spend more time dreaming than adults do.

The quills of a porcupine are soft when they are born.

While newborns have tear glands from birth, they typically do not produce visible crying tears until they are approximately two weeks to three months old.

The debate over disposable vs. cloth diapers and diaper rash has produced surprising results—modern disposable diapers with superabsorbent polymers often keep babies drier and may actually reduce diaper rash compared to traditional cloth diapers.

Many baby octopuses are about the size of a flea at birth, though their exact size varies by species, with some being even smaller.

Baby blue whales grow at an average rate of 10 pounds per hour

Modern disposable diapers use sodium polyacrylate, a superabsorbent polymer that can absorb up to 300 times its weight in water, allowing a typical diaper to hold over 1 liter of liquid.

A baby eel is called an elver, a baby oyster is called a spat.

Giant Panda Bears give birth to a 4 ounce Baby Panda!

A newborn Chinese water deer is so small, it can (almost) be held in the palm of a hand.

A newborn kangaroo is small enough to fit in a teaspoon!

Every baby born in Finland gets a government-issued cardboard box. Inside: clothes, diapers, sleeping bag, mattress, and supplies. The box itself is the baby's first bed. Finland started this in 1938 — and its infant mortality rate dropped from one of Europe's worst to one of the world's best.

Hospitals across the US have volunteer "baby cuddler" programs where grandparents come in to hold and cuddle premature babies in the NICU when parents can't be there. Skin-to-skin contact helps the babies gain weight faster, sleep better, and leave the hospital sooner. Some hospitals have waitlists of over 500 people wanting to volunteer.