Why a newborn baby cry?

All newborns are supposed to cry—and most of them do a very good job of it. In fact, most newborns tackle this important rite of babyhood immediately on being delivered. A newborn’s first cries serve a very important purpose—helping to fill his lungs with air and thereby shift over from being dependent on the oxygen carried to him in his mother’s blood to breathing it in on his own. Even without an explanation of fetal and newborn circulation, you probably don’t need us to tell you that delivery room cries are worthy of eager anticipation; generally represent the arrival of a happy, healthy baby; and are almost universally met with tears of joy and relief.

What cries may come in the days that follow can vary considerably from baby to baby—but more likely than not you’ll find yourself with a relatively sleepy baby who only cries to be fed. Once newborns have slept off the excitement of delivery and opened their eyes to the brave new world that lies before them, you can bet that they all inevitably and intermittently start crying.

That said, one of the first and most helpful lessons to teach yourself is that babies don’t always cry for the same reasons as adults. After all, most of us cry when we are either a) hurt or b) upset.We assume it is for this reason that many parents become distressed at the sound of their baby’s cry and feel like absolute failures if they can’t stop their baby’s presumed cries for help, much less stop them immediately.

Babies, on the other hand, have the uncanny ability to burst into tears (minus the tears, of course, which don’t tend to show up for the first month or so—see “Loud and Tearless” below) if they’re startled, hungry, cold or hot, tired, wet, bored, annoyed, have gas...you get the picture. The way we look at it, babies are justified in crying a lot if for no other reason than that they really don’t have many other ways of communicating their feelings. If you remind yourself that crying isn’t always synonymous with pain or being upset, you’ll be much less likely to find yourself on the verge of tears in the months to come.