how are survival reflexes adaptive to an infant?

Answer 1

Newborns are basically helpless and therefore highly dependent on their caretakers for protection and survival.


Survival Reflexes. Breathing; Rooting; Sucking; Pupillary; Eye-blink.

Answer 2

The Organized Newborn – Reflexes, Perceptual Capabilities and Social Readiness





* Reflexes



The infant comes equipped with different kinds of reflexes. A reflex is an inborn, automatic response to a particular form of stimulation, and they are the neonates most obvious organized patterns of behaviors. Example: Stroke newborn of the cheek, she will turn her head and open her mouth and begin sucking. Neonates have very many of them, including rooting, sucking, moro, palmar, grasp, stepping, etc. click transparency. Some newborn reflexes have survival value, like the rooting reflex that helps a baby find the mother’s nipple. If sucking weren’t automatic, our species may not have survived for a single generation!. Swimming is also a survival type of reflex that helps a baby who is accidentally dropped into water to stay afloat. Other reflexes protect infants from unwanted stimulation (blinking, sucking). A few reflexes may have helped us survive during our evolutionary past but are no longer serve any special purpose. For example the moro or embracing reflex, which is believed to have helped infants cling to their mothers when babies were carried about all the time. If the infant suddenly lost support, it would reflexively embrace to the mother to regain it.

Some reflexes like blinking, breathing, sneezing, remain throughout our lifetime. Others are only present in infancy, and then disappear at a predictable time, due to a gradual increase in the voluntary control of behavior. click transparency. Certain reflexes like palmar grasp, swimming, and stepping responses drop out in early infancy but then the motor functions involved are renewed in later development.

Reflexes provide one way of assessing the health of the baby’s nervous system. In brain damaged infants reflexes may be weak or absent, or they may persist when they should have normally disappeared

Answer 3

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RE:
how are survival reflexes adaptive to an infant?

Answer 4

There are several reflexes found in infants, below are a few of them:

1. Rooting Reflex - When you lightly stroke an infant's cheek, the infant will turn his/ her head in the direction of the stroking. This reflex allows an infant to find its way to the mother's nipple for breast feeding.

2. Palmar Grasp Reflex - When you place a finger in the palm of the infant, the infant will grasp the finger. This simulates an infant grabbing an object to steady himself/ herself or for holding an object.

3. Moro's Reflex - When you hold an infant and quickly lower him/ her, this simulates the sensation of falling. The infant will immediately stretch out his/ her arm, grasp and then bring the hands to the chest. What do people do when they are falling, it is natural to grab anything nearby and pull on it to stop the fall. The Moro's reflex is the same idea.

Answer 5

What Is The Rooting Reflex

Answer 6

If you are evolutionist you may suggest the Moro reflex would be for baby to grab on to mother's fur. I wonder if baby apes have the same reflex and if it is in use in survival.