That same amazement was echoed in many of the hundreds of thousands of Facebook comments where people were calling the newborn girl a “miracle baby.” Others were less impressed and questioned whether or not the video was fake. After all, the most babies don’t take their first steps until they’re between nine and 12 months old.
Watch the post to judge for yourself:
For our part, we’re not exactly convinced that she’s walking—and neither are the experts.
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“This is in no way walking,” says Sherry A. Ross, M.D., a women’s health expert, and the author of She-ology: The Definitive Guide to Women’s Intimate Health. Period. “You’ve got to be able to crawl before you can walk.” The motion can be categorized as nothing more than a reflex, which is completely normal, she says. “If you rub a baby’s cheek, it opens its mouth,” she says. “Babies are programmed to have reactions to simulation.” The same logic applies here: if you hold the baby up, its limbs won’t simply dangle there.
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Beyond this “walking,” you shouldn’t expect a newborn baby to simply lay still after it’s born. They squirming around in utero, and that stimulation is ten-fold when they’re being delivered, so there’s even more to react to, she says. “It doesn’t surprise me that there’s motion,” she says. “The baby looks completely normal and healthy.”
So while this little girl probably isn’t a miracle baby, at least she can say her reflexes have been on-point since birth.