Do babies know their mom at birth?

From your smell and voice, your baby will quickly learn to recognise you're the person who comforts and feeds them most, but not that you're their parent. However, even from birth, your baby will start to communicate with signals when they're tired and hungry, or awake and alert.

Babies recognize their mother's scent even before they are born. Your baby is biologically and genetically programmed to connect to you through your unique smell. The process of development of olfactory cells (cells responsible for the sense of smell) begins as soon as the first trimester of pregnancy.

Since your baby's vision is extremely limited for the first hours, days, and weeks after they're born, most babies should be able to recognize both parents' faces within the first few weeks (although some say it may take up to two months).