Newborn babies arrive with a range of reflexes and automatic behaviors.
According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, many movements during a baby's first weeks are reflexive rather than deliberate. These include familiar newborn behaviors such as rooting, sucking, grasping and the Moro or startle reflex.
In other words, babies are doing a tremendous amount from the moment they are born, but not everything they do should be interpreted as an intentional message.
The same caution applies to facial expressions.
The American Academy of Pediatrics explains that during the earliest months babies experiment with simple grins and grimaces, while clearer social expressions develop as they grow.
So when a minutes-old newborn appears to give someone an impressively skeptical look, the safest interpretation isn't:
“This baby is already judging her mother.”
It's:
“This photograph captured an absolutely perfect newborn expression.”
And that distinction matters.
The humor is real.
The photograph is real.
But the adult meaning we attach to the expression is playful interpretation.
Newborn Smiles Can Be Spontaneous Too
Even smiling isn't always as straightforward as adults might assume.
Researchers have documented spontaneous smiles in newborn infants.
One study indexed by the U.S. National Library of Medicine's PubMed database observed spontaneous smiles in newborns and found that unilateral — or one-sided — spontaneous smiles were more common in neonates than bilateral smiles.
Other research has examined smiling behavior during both wakefulness and active sleep in newborns.
This is one reason parents sometimes see a newborn seemingly smile long before the more recognizable “social smile” develops.
A beautiful smile in a photograph does not necessarily mean a newborn has just understood a joke or deliberately expressed happiness toward the person standing nearby.
Likewise, a spectacular frown doesn't necessarily mean the baby is angry.
And a perfectly timed side-eye doesn't necessarily mean she has already developed opinions about her parents.
Yet none of that makes the photographs less meaningful.
If anything, knowing how spontaneous these expressions can be makes capturing one at precisely the right moment even more remarkable.
Why Adults Can't Help Giving the Expression a Meaning
Human beings are extraordinarily attentive to faces.
From a photograph, we instinctively try to understand what another person might be feeling.
That habit is useful in everyday social life.
A smile may tell us someone is pleased to see us.
A frown may indicate discomfort.
Wide eyes might suggest surprise.
But interpreting a newborn's expression is much more complicated.
Research into early infant development shows that the relationship between facial movement and specific emotions develops over time.
Scientists continue to study how infants perceive facial expressions and how their own emotional responses develop.
One study of infants' spontaneous facial responses found that even at four months, researchers did not see clear selective facial-muscle activation corresponding to different emotional expressions in the same way found later in infancy.
By seven months, clearer selective responses were observed for some expressions.
That developmental process is an important reminder:
An adult-looking expression does not automatically mean an adult-like thought is behind it.
But our tendency to interpret it that way creates the comedy.
When a newborn appears to look skeptical, we recognize “skepticism.”
When a baby raises an eyebrow, we see “attitude.”
When a tiny infant purses her lips, adults jokingly imagine that she is disappointed with everyone in the room.
We know she isn't delivering a critique.
But for a photograph, it can certainly look that way.
A Baby's First Hours Are Filled With Adjustment
It is also worth remembering how extraordinary the first hours after birth actually are.
A newborn has just undergone an enormous transition.
Before birth, a baby receives oxygen and nutrients through the placenta.
After delivery, the baby's body must adapt to breathing air and functioning outside the womb.
Temperature, sound, light and physical contact are all part of a dramatically different environment.