Reading this article are you wondering how could babies have more bones than adults?
In fact babies have around 90-95 more bones than adults.
But where did they go, did they just disappear?
A baby is born with around 300 bones, whereas a grown adult has 206 bones. There is no debate that babies have a significantly higher number of bones than adults. The reason behind this is attributed to cartilage.
Cartilage is a rubber-like padding that covers and shields the ends of long bones at the joints. It is basically a smooth, elastic tissue that can be readily found in the ears, rib cage, nose and other parts of the body. Cartilage is neither as strong as bone nor as flexible as muscle.
There are three different types of Cartilage; Elastic cartilage is found in the external ear flaps and in parts of the larynx, Hyaline cartilage is found in the nose, ears, trachea, parts of the larynx, and smaller respiratory tubes, and Fibrous cartilage is found in the spine and the menisci.
Ossification – Conversion of cartilage into bone
Babies are born with more cartilage (than bone), but it gradually turns into bone over a period of time through a process called endochondral ossification. This is a vital part of the developmental stages of a fetus and leads to the creation of bone tissue in the body. As the baby grows, cartilage is replaced by bone matrices. Here, calcium salts (that babies get from their diet) are laid to form hardened bones. This is the reason why adults have fewer bones than babies because, for babies, many small bony segments fuse together to form a single bone.
ed to be extremely soft and limber so that they can be born in the first place!
