Re: Do newborn non-human mammals cry when air initially enters their lungs?

Do all mammalian babies cry at birth?

I don’t know a whole lot about birthin’ babies, but I’ll answer this question as best I can.

I can’t find any data about non-humans. I know from experience that newborn non-humans are not necessarily silent right after birth, but they don’t necessarily make a lot of noise either.

New born human babies are clinically assessed using something called an “Apgar Score.” One of the things that increases this score is the baby’s cry. So, you do expect “healthy” human babies to cry at birth. However, the Apgar score also looks at other things, and a human baby does not have to cry to be considered healthy. Essentially, what is important is breathing; crying is just an indicator of that, but there are other signs.

So, baby crying is common in humans, but not necessary. Lack of crying may be more common at birth for non-human babies, but silence is not necessary.

Different animals are born with different levels of developmental maturity. For example, horses can run hours after birth – humans can’t do that for years. However, the necessary bones and muscles exists in both. It is still something of a debate as to whether the necessary development has to come in the brain (for neuromuscular control) or in the muscles and bones themselves. I suspect that there would be a similar issue with vocalization. New born human babies probably represent a different level of maturity in vocalization ability when compared to other animals. However, the necessary maturing to make “real” noise may come from a growth of the vocal cords in some animals, a growth of the brain in others, and a little bit of both in most.