What are the manifestations of mental retardation in babies?

Every year, some mentally retarded babies are born in our country, which brings great pain to many families. There are many reasons for the mental retardation of babies. Current research believes that the factors that cause mental retardation in babies include heredity, prenatal injuries, injuries during delivery, and illness after birth. It is often difficult to detect a baby's mental retardation, which delays treatment. However, there are still some symptoms of mental retardation in babies, which can be identified with careful observation.

The symptoms of mental retardation in babies include the following:

1. Difficulty in feeding

Appears in infancy. The earliest symptoms shown by infants with mental retardation are often difficulty in feeding, inability to suck, and being particularly prone to spitting up milk, which indicates damage to the nervous system and will affect their intelligence in the future.

2. Abnormal facial and body shape

Some babies with congenital mental retardation have abnormal facial and body appearance. For example, children with congenital idiocy have eyes that are too wide apart, slanted eyes, flat noses, tongues that often hang outside the mouth, and drooling, which is what people often call an "international face." Children with hydrocephalus have particularly large head circumference, while children with microcephaly have particularly small heads. People with hypothyroidism are particularly short, people with phenylketonuria have abnormally white skin and very light hair, etc.

3. Motor development retardation

Babies with intellectual disabilities have significantly slower motor development than normal babies. The starting age for movements such as raising the head while lying on the stomach, sitting, standing, and walking is later than that of normal children of the same age. This is especially obvious in walking. It is often not until the age of 3-4 or 4-5 that the child can walk independently, and the walking is unstable.

4. Language development is delayed

Normal babies will imitate sounds at 7-8 months old, call mom and dad at around one year old, can say a dozen words at one and a half years old and understand simple instructions, can ask simple questions at around 2 years old, and can basically express their thoughts at around 3 years old. If these symptoms appear only after a child is four to five months behind or even one to two years behind, they should be regarded as a sign of intellectual disability.

5. Poor responsiveness to the environment

Soon after birth, a normal baby begins to become interested in people and things in the environment, and as long as he is awake, he will always look around. But mentally retarded babies are indifferent to the environment. In the first 1-2 months after birth, the baby will not make eye contact with adults and will not smile when teased. He is very quiet all day and rarely cries. These babies are often praised for being too quiet, and their intellectual problems are often easily overlooked.

6. Hyperactivity

In contrast to babies who are too quiet, hyperactivity is also a characteristic of some intellectually retarded babies. Many intellectually retarded babies cannot stay still for a while and are active all the time. This is especially evident in children aged 4-5 years old. This kind of hyperactivity is different from the liveliness and mischief of normal children. It has no purpose, but is just an uncontrollable excitement. He touches everything he comes across and even knocks over chairs and stools without knowing how to pick them up.

7. Lack of concentration

Intellectually retarded babies have difficulty concentrating. Their attention span is significantly shorter than that of normal babies. Even when they are 5-6 years old, they can only concentrate on one thing for no more than 5-6 minutes. They also pay little attention to the outside world.

8. Visual and hearing impairment

Severe visual and auditory defects, such as severe myopia, hyperopia, astigmatism, total deafness, and hearing loss, also have a great impact on intelligence. Because vision and hearing are the means of communication between people and the outside world, they will lead to intellectual development delay.

The above symptoms all indicate that the baby may have mental retardation problems. Therefore, when you find these symptoms in your baby, you should take your baby to the hospital to ask for the doctor's advice in time, and conduct necessary examinations and give your child treatment in time.