Why do babies cry when they are born?

It seems all babies that are born cry for some reason. Why are they crying even when they are being cared for my the Mom.

Edited June 7Jun 7 by Moon99

7 minutes ago, Moon99 said:

Why do babies cry when they are born?

It seems all babies that are born cry for some reason. Why are they crying even when they are being cared for my the Mom.

To inflate their lungs, which are collapsed and full of fluid in the womb. They suffer a period of oxygen shortage when the cord ceases to supply oxygenated blood, and this both makes them uncomfortable and stimulates the breathing reflex. So they cry, clearing their lungs in the process.

In fact, I now think I recall reading that a surfactant is secreted in the lungs of the foetus as the pregnancy approaches full term, which reduces the surface tension of the fluid in the developing lungs, making it easier to pull the surfaces apart to inflate them. The lack of this surfactant is one of the problems faced in the care of premature babies.

Several things. First, nowhere near "all" babies cry after birth. Most folks attending deliveries will encourage noncrying babies to cry for the reasons noted above. Lastly, we adults associate the act of crying with great pain, either physical or emotional, but I'm not convinced crying is limited to that role in newborns.

Edited July 8Jul 8 by LuckyR

On 6/7/2025 at 3:07 PM, Moon99 said:

Why do babies cry when they are born?

It seems all babies that are born cry for some reason. Why are they crying even when they are being cared for my the Mom.

Other animals cry also including baby chicks to be fed and penguins in huge colonies where parents can pick out their cry.

Crying in babies/ young has an Evolutionary advantage.

We are currently amazed at the acuteness of our cat Louisa's sensitivity to her new born kittens mewing when they wake up and she's been taking a Mom Break outside. This morning she was in the backyard and I had closed the windows and just left the laundry room door slightly ajar so she could get back in - the kittens were in a towel lined deep box in the quietest corner of the cellar. I went down there to retrieve a canister of oats (we keep a backup food supply down there) and began to hear very faint mewings. In the box they were all writhing around and crawling over each other, awake and hungry. This area is sonically very far removed from the upstairs, let alone the shady back of the yard where Louisa was hanging out by the birdbath. But somehow she had sensed the awakening and was rushing down the stairs as I made my way up. We've seen this happen many times now in the past five days.

I'm saving one of them to ship to England - I know @pinball1970 has been eagerly awaiting a kitten. (In-joke)

1 hour ago, TheVat said:

I'm saving one of them to ship to England - I know @pinball1970 has been eagerly awaiting a kitten. (In-joke)

I adore those little furry bundles of fun.

Seems to me newborn crying would provide early training in paying attention for the parents, especially mothers. Achieving the sorts that go right up the spine is probably getting it right. Not using those kinds unnecessarily has to be learned.

Edited July 11Jul 11 by Ken Fabian

On 7/8/2025 at 3:56 PM, TheVat said:

We are currently amazed at the acuteness of our cat Louisa's sensitivity to her new born kittens mewing when they wake up...

I wonder if the mewling of babes and domesticated adult cats is pretty much the same thing (over and above sharing a similar frequency band).

AFAIK adult wild cats don't mewl, and adult domestic cats only seem to mewl to us; not to each other. Personal impressions: no scientific references to support this idea.

3 hours ago, sethoflagos said:

I wonder if the mewling of babes and domesticated adult cats is pretty much the same thing (over and above sharing a similar frequency band).

AFAIK adult wild cats don't mewl, and adult domestic cats only seem to mewl to us; not to each other. Personal impressions: no scientific references to support this idea.

https://www.thetimes.com/uk/scotland/article/how-the-cat-got-its-miaow-to-mimic-babies-and-manipulate-their-owners-6tmwgq36n

Cats miaow only to humans and mimic newborn babies to grab our attention, according to one of Scotland’s foremost vets who says that we should listen to our pets better.

Danielle Gunn-Moore, professor of feline medicine at the Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies at Edinburgh University said that cats had learnt to manipulate human emotions.

She said: “In the wild kittens will mew to their mum to get them to come back and rescue them. But they are not miaows. Cats have learnt over the millennia that if they make a noise not unlike a newborn baby it is a good way of getting attention whether we like it or not.”

1 hour ago, TheVat said:

https://www.thetimes.com/uk/scotland/article/how-the-cat-got-its-miaow-to-mimic-babies-and-manipulate-their-owners-6tmwgq36n

Alas, red dwarves will evaporate before I'll stump up the Kobo to get beyond the Murdochian paywall blocking access to this link.

So I'll take the science creds on trust.

What's a Royal (Dick) School?

58 minutes ago, sethoflagos said:

Alas, red dwarves will evaporate before I'll stump up the Kobo to get beyond the Murdochian paywall blocking access to this link.

So I'll take the science creds on trust.

What's a Royal (Dick) School?

I didn't encounter a paywall (or realize the Times was Murdochian - yikes!).

I also wondered about the school name. Sounds highly specialized. 😁

27 minutes ago, TheVat said:

I also wondered about the school name. Sounds highly specialized. 😁

I thought the vet's speciality was Pu... Cat.