Babies are born with developing senses, though none are fully mature at birth. Sensory growth begins early in gestation and continues into childhood. Each developing sense plays a role in a baby’s exploration and interaction with their environment, laying the groundwork for learning and bonding.
The Earliest Sense: Touch
Touch is the first sense to develop. As early as 7 to 8 weeks into pregnancy, touch receptors begin to form around the face, particularly the lips and nose. These receptors then spread across the entire body, reaching the palms and soles by 12 weeks and the abdomen by 17 weeks. This early development allows a baby to explore their own body and the womb.
After birth, touch remains important for comfort, security, and bonding with caregivers. Newborns are highly responsive to tactile stimulation, finding solace in skin-to-skin contact, gentle caresses, and swaddling. This physical interaction helps regulate their responses and reinforces attachment. Through touch, babies gather information about textures, temperatures, and pressure, which is crucial for understanding their surroundings and developing motor skills.
The Developing Sensory World: Hearing, Smell, and Taste
While touch leads the way, hearing, smell, and taste also develop during gestation, becoming functional by birth and continuing to refine.
The structures for hearing begin forming around 7 weeks, with functional hearing emerging by 18 to 20 weeks of pregnancy. Fetuses respond to sounds from within the mother’s body, such as her heartbeat, and external noises. Newborns can distinguish between different voices, showing a preference for their mother’s voice, which they recognize from the womb.
The senses of smell and taste are well-developed at birth, with taste buds forming between 13 and 15 weeks of gestation. Newborns exhibit a distinct preference for sweet tastes, such as breast milk, over sour or bitter ones, which guides their feeding behavior. Their sense of smell allows them to differentiate between various scents. Newborns recognize and prefer the smell of their own mother, especially her breast milk, which aids in feeding and strengthens the maternal bond.
The Last Sense to Fully Mature: Sight
Sight is present at birth but is the least developed of the five senses and undergoes the longest maturation period.
Newborns have limited visual acuity, seeing objects clearly only within 8 to 12 inches, roughly the distance to a caregiver’s face during feeding. Their initial vision is blurry, primarily in shades of gray, with limited color perception. They show a preference for high-contrast patterns, which helps stimulate their developing visual pathways.
Over the first few months, an infant’s vision gradually improves. Eye coordination develops, allowing them to track moving objects and focus on faces. Color vision begins to emerge around one to two months, becoming more robust by five months. Depth perception develops between three and seven months, enabling babies to judge distances and reach for toys. Visual acuity continues to refine throughout the first few years of life, reaching adult levels between ages three and five.