Baby Crib Plaza

Baby Footprints

March 9th, 2010 |

Author: admin

Baby Footprints

Baby footprints and age of newborn?

My friend recently gave birth to her second son. He was born a month early and although a preemie, he weighed over 7 lbs. I told her that perhaps she miscalculated her due date. She responded by saying that at birth, her son's footprints, just like rings on a tree, indicated her child's age. Apparently he didn't have as many prints as a full term baby. I asked if her doctor or nurse told her this, and she said yes. Does anyone know if a baby's prints can tell the age of your newborn, like rings on a tree?

A premature baby will have less defined wrinkles on the hands and feet. This is because the unique ridges and fine details are developed during the last weeks.
It isn't quite like the rings on a tree, as there is no set number a baby should have. A child that is premature just tends to be a little smoother than a full term baby.
Another thing that is frequent with preemies...
My sister was 10 weeks early, she is now 15 yrs old. Her ears are very smooth. Instead of the deep ridges that most people have, she has almost none.

Why do they make footprints of babies when they are born?

This maybe a stupid question, but I'd like to know. I can't imagine the print staying the same from a baby to adulthood(?).

The footprints are taken for identification purposes. The foot print does not change with age, it is just like a hand print. The problem with taking a baby’s hand print is that the fingers are really small and you will have to zoom them to get a clear print.

They are also sent to the state where they are filed along with the original birth certificate. Not every state requires to have footprints to issue a birth certificate but many states still do.
Here is an piece from an article:
In recent years, however, the print media, including several medical journals, have expressed the opinion that hospitals waste time and money by footprinting newborns. To support their arguments, the authors of these articles point out that delivery room personnel do not take consistently legible infant footprints suitable for identification purposes. One article cited a study in which footprints were obtained from 20 newborns at 5 different nurseries with techniques known to provide maximum detail. An unidentified "police dermatoglyphist" examined the footprints. This print identification expert found 89 percent to be technically inadequate for identification purposes, with only 1 percent possessing sufficient ridge detail for positive identification. The article concluded by stating that the typical health care professional is not fully aware of "...how unreliable footprints of a newborn happen to be for purposes of identification."1 In a 1988 publication, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) stated that "...individual hospitals may want to continue the practice of footprinting or fingerprinting, but universal use of this practice is no longer recommended."2 Both organizations based their findings on studies that demonstrated that the majority of infant footprints taken by hospital personnel prove inadequate for identification purposes