Remember the feeling of excitement the day your baby was born. While you were smiling and saying hello, rubbing her tiny fingers and stroking her cheeks, her brain cells were firing away, activating various regions of her brain. Far from the passive little bundle she resembled, your baby was hard at work, actively constructing the foundation of her future intellectual and emotional self.
Construction of this miracle organ begins just weeks after conception. Brain is made of cells called “neurons”. By the time, a baby makes her entry into the world, she will have the maximum number of neurons she will ever have – around 100 to 200 billions!!
If newborns have all their neurons in place, why can’t they read, write or speak?
This is because, the neurons though present in huge numbers are not connected. It is the laying down of the neural wiring that connects each neuron to a multitude of others that allows for the “Brain” to develop into a “Mind”. This process of wiring does not happen automatically (it was not programmed by the genes). But, researchers have now discovered that this is determined by baby’s own experiences. They believe that in order for brain cells to grow bigger and establish stronger connections, they must be exercised. Early experiences are thought to provide opportunities and act as a stimulant to develop neural circuitry.
Well, you must have guessed where all this is leading to – YOU!
As a parent, you are the primary source of structuring your very dependent infant’s worlds, in ways that will provide his/her brain with the excitement and energy it craves. You sing him/her a new song – a connection is made. You tickle his/her toes – there goes another. You show him/her a picture – circuitry grows stronger.
At birth a baby’s brain weighs about 340gms and it continues to grow during the first year. By first birthday, it has already more than doubled in weight to about 1100gms. By age five, brain weight will have reached 90% of its eventual adult brain weight. This increase in size results from cells (neurons) growing larger and also from the development of interconnective pathways (neural wiring) that allows them to communicate.
So, again, you as a parent are the producers of this movie, working behind the scenes to make sure that enough resources are available from day one to make the final product – the story of you baby’s life – the very best it can be!
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