Developmental Stages of Your Baby’s Five Senses

Babies’ senses begin to develop from the first weeks of pregnancy. In this way, your baby starts to get to know you while you are still pregnant.

Smell

Your baby’s sense of smell is one of the first senses to develop in the womb. Olfactory receptors begin to develop from the 8th week of pregnancy and become fully functional at approximately the 24th week.
Babies begin to smell their mothers’ scents while they are still in the womb, so they can recognize their mothers’ scents and be calmed by this scent even immediately after birth.

Touch

The sense of touch begins to develop in the early stages of pregnancy, as early as 8 weeks.
Skin-to-skin contact with your newborn baby increases the feeling of warmth and security, and this is especially important for premature babies.

Taste

Taste buds develop as early as the 8th week of pregnancy, becoming fully functional by the 17th week.
Babies’ sense of taste develops through the tastes they taste in breast milk or formula. Research shows that breastfed babies tend to prefer flavored foods consumed by the mother during breastfeeding.
As babies grow, their sense of taste continues to mature and develop. It is recommended that babies be exposed to a variety of tastes in the early stages of complementary food so that they have a wide palate and do not have picky eating habits.

Sight

Vision is one of the last senses to develop and is not fully mature at birth.
Babies’ vision begins to develop at approximately 7-9 weeks of pregnancy, but when they are born, their vision is still blurry and they can only see objects approximately 20-25 cm away from their face.
Starting from the 12th month, your baby’s eyesight reaches adult levels.

Hearing

Hearing begins to develop around the 16th week of pregnancy and becomes more sensitive during infancy.
Your baby starts to hear your voice while in your womb and thus can recognize you.
Signs that your baby may be hard-of-hearing include not reacting to loud sounds, not turning their head to a sound source by 6 months of age, and not attempting to make words like “mama” or “dada” by 12 months.

Resources:

Lipchock S, Reed D, Mennella J. The gustatory and olfactory systems during infancy: implications for development of feeding behaviors in the high-risk neonate. Clinics in Perinatology. 2011;38(4):627-641. doi:10.1016/j.clp.2011.08.008
Vaglio S. Chemical communication and mother-infant recognition. Communicative and Integrative Biology. 2009;2(3):279-281. doi:10.4161/cib.2.3.8227
Sehgal A, Nitzan I, Jayawickreme N, Menahem S. Impact of Skin-to-Skin Parent-Infant Care on Preterm Circulatory Physiology. Journal of Pediatrics. 2020;222:P91-97.E2. doi:10.1016/j.jpeds.2020.03.041
Donovan T, Dunn K, Penman A, Young R, Reid V. Fetal eye movements in response to a visual stimulus. Brain and Behavior. 2020;10(8):e01676. doi:10.1002/brb3.1676
Marx V, Nagy E. Fetal Behavioural Responses to Maternal Voice and Touch. PLOS One. 2015;10(6):e0129118. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0129118
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. What is Hearing Loss in Children? https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/hearingloss/facts.html