The Rights of the Human Newborn Baby

It is becoming acceptable to claim that newborn babies have rights based on our current understanding of their basic needs. During the second half of the twentieth century, these needs have been identified by a great diversity of emerging scientific disciplines (such as ethology, studies of the behavioral effects of hormones, immunology, bacteriology, studies of the content of early colostrum, studies of the initiation of lactation). We can summarize the main conclusions by claiming that a newborn baby needs its mother. This paper addresses this and other basic needs of the newborn from a human rights perspective.