ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses five senses in the newborn: sight; hearing; sense of smell; sense of taste; and touch. Sight in a newborn is more than a passive ability. A healthy response to visual stimuli in a newborn is thus more than alert attention and might be described in four stages: an initial alerting, an increasing attention, a gradually decreasing interest, and a final turning away from a monotonous presentation. Newborn babies' hearing capacity is also evident at birth. They show a clear preference for the female voice, brightening and turning toward it in preference to a male voice. Newborns have a highly developed sense of smell, ready to distinguish the appealing and unappealing odors that will help them adapt to their new world. Newborns can recognize subtle differences in taste. Touch is the first important area of communication between a mother and her new infant.
