Parents are filled with unending questions when it comes to their babies. What should the baby eat, when will it start walking, what are the things that I need to take care of- these are some of the very common questions that a lot of parents ask when it comes to newborns.
The intensity of the questions increases if the baby is a first born. First time parents are more nervous than those who have done this before and hence there are a lot of questions that they have about their child. One very common question that a lot of people tend to ask is that do baby have kneecaps. Well, when it comes to this question, the answer can never be a simple yes or no. Wondering why?
What is a kneecap?
In order to understand whether or not a child has kneecaps it is important for us to first understand what kneecaps are. We all have kneecaps. Touch your knee and the hard covering that you will feel is the knee cap. It is also known as the patella and is convex in shape. The main function of the kneecap is to protect the knee joint and minimise the extent of hurt to the joint when someone falls or hurts their knee. So kneecaps are basically protective coverings of the knee joint.
Who has a kneecap?
All adults have a kneecap protecting their knee joint, but not all kids have a full grown kneecap. In fact till about teenage, not all kids have a kneecap which is properly developed. So if you want to know about baby knee caps and whether the little ones have them or not- the only suitable answer to question would be that babies do not have a properly developed kneecap and it is in the process of formation.
There is a very simple explanation as to why babies have knee caps which are there in their formative state. Every bone in your body has developed with the ocification of cartilages. Cartilages are soft mushy structures which are in place of the bones. Slowly the process of calcification takes place and the bones of the body are formed. This process takes a lot of time and it goes on till about one hits their teens. It is only then the process of calcification stops and the entire body structure is formed. It is because of this reason that if kids hurt themselves, especially if it a bone injury they recover faster than adults.
The growth of a child is a fascinating experience to watch and to learn from. There are so many things that you will get to know about yourself in the process. The journey towards parenthood is both a challenging as well as an exciting one. If you are expecting a child any time soon, arm yourself about the basic things about the growth of a child, so that you can take measures accordingly which will help you in bringing up the child. All the best!
