WHY A BABY SLEEPS

Evening Star, Issue 20061, 29 December 1928, Page 3

WHY A BABY SLEEPS

UNDEVELOPED CONDITION OF BRAIN During the first few months of life the hours that a baby is awake are few, indeed, when compared to the hours spent in sleep, writes a medical man in the San Francisco ‘ Chronicle.’ Why does a baby need such an enormous amount of sleep? The cause is to be found in the undeveloped condition of the child’s brain, and especially of the outer layer of grey matter. Modern study of sleep has shown that it is closely connected with alterations in the colls of the grey matter of the brain. An interesting discussion of the subject appears in a German scientific: journal. According to the writer it is only the part of the brain known as the cerebrum, with the organs whose activities depend upon it, that really sleeps; all organs and parts continue to function as usual, though at a slower rate.

“At birth,” says this authority, “ the brain is still undeveloped, being especially immature and incapable in those portions which govern the maintenance of the waking state—namely, the outer layer of the cerebrum. This begins to develop gradually under stimuli received from the external wrold or from the child’s own body, which reach this layer usually in a. roundabout manner, and which slowly appear after the child is born. But the most important apparatus for the reception of stimuli—namely, the higher sense organs,-are not yet capable of proper operation at their terminal stations in the brain, because they have not yet developed the sheathing for their nerve matter. “ Weeks are required—months rather —before the nerves, whose duty it is to conduct sensory impressions, are properly provided with this insulating sheath. The new-born child is unable to react to sensory stimuli during this period, because these stimuli must first slowly build a path toward their central destination in the brain. Thus the new-born child sleeps so continuously during the first portion of its life, because the stimuli are obliged to build a path gradually to the grey matter of the brain, where they occasion those alterations which are, in general, a necessary preliminary to making the area concerned capable of operation. “Usually the first_ sensations perceived by the child spring from its own body—feelings of hunger, beat, etc., and they cause a condition of unrest because they arc the first tq penetrate the brain. It is not until Later, when, by reason of the continued influence of the sensory impressions, the various areas of the brain have been more extensively and repeatedly excited, and. consequently, brought to the point of normal functioning. After the nerve cells of the various areas have been stimulated, and thereby induced to throw out processes by means of which they are more closely knitted together, they are able to function in unison, and the waking condition becomes possible.”