Internet stunned as newborn ‘walks’ after birth, but doctors say it’s normal

Click to expand

Replay Video

• 

  Remedies to relieve mosquito bites

  When you get a mosquito bite, the mosquito injects its saliva into you and numbs the area. Then a few hours later, your body reacts by making histamines which creates the itch. Try these home remedies to get rid of the itch and help you heal.

  AccuWeather
• 

  The Most Adorable Law Breaker

  What would you do if you got caught breaking the law? Well this sweet gal tore off a tag that she wasn’t supposed to and her grandmother found out about it! The best part about this video is her adorable reaction when her grandmother confronts her about it!

  Viral Clips Daily
• 

  Cutest Kitchen Helper

  This sweet little girl is learning how to make oatmeal with her family when she makes an adorable mistake! But with everything considered, what she does next isn’t technically wrong! A cup is a cup, regardless of what it looks like! Talk about an adorable cooking 101.

  Viral Clips Daily

SETTINGS

OFF

HD

HQ

SD

LO

UP NEXT

Related video: Newborn baby walking just after it’s born becomes viral sensation (Courtesy: Buzz60)

Medical miracle? Baby defying the odds? Primitive reflex?

Video footage posted last week shows a baby walking with assistance from a nurse just moments after birth at a Brazilian maternity hospital.

A woman in the video exclaims, “Oh my gosh, the girl is walking. Good gracious!” according to The Sun’s translation. “Merciful father. I was trying to wash her here and she keeps getting up to walk.”

The video has been viewed over 1 million times on YouTube and over 99 million times on Facebook.

But the medical marvel may not be so rare.

“This is a totally normal reflex that babies have,” Megan Heere, MD, assistant professor of pediatrics at Temple University and medical director at Temple’s Well Baby Nursery, told Health. “If anything, this video really highlights the reflex and is a good example of what normal babies do.”

According to the publication, infants possess a number of “primitive reflexes” as soon at birth. The step or walking reflex, allows babies to “walk” when held upright with their feet touching a solid surface and is present for about the first two months of life.

And Daniela Corbetta, PhD, director of the Infant Perception-Action Laboratory at the University of Tennessee Knoxville, told Health this reflex has been documented in newborns since the 1940s.

It “looks like walking, but really is only a stepping motion,” Corbetta said. “This is very far from being able to walk.”