The oral stage is a developmental stage in a baby’s first year of life when he or she explores the world around him or her with the mouth. During the oral stage, the baby tries to put objects of all kinds in his mouth.
What is the oral stage?
The oral stage is a developmental stage during the first year of a child’s life when he explores his environment with his mouth. The German psychologist Sigmund Freud, among others, was concerned with the developments of babies and young children through puberty to adulthood. The knowledge about the phases of body and environment exploration, which a baby goes through significantly in the first year of life, but also beyond, goes back to him. One of these phases is the oral phase. It marks the entry into the different phases. From about the third month of life, a baby can make its first grasping movements, but it sees a shadowy outline rather than clear contours. The baby’s sense of touch is much more reliable than its sense of sight. While an adult looks at an object to understand it, the baby puts it in its mouth and determines what it has in its hand – or mouth – based on taste, resistance to chewing, shape, temperature and such factors. The learning processes of the oral phase are grasping and hand-mouth coordination, a first simple motor skill exercise. Chewing is also trained. However, the oral phase is also dangerous without question, because babies do not differentiate between harmless and potentially dangerous objects.
Function and task
Just like all other phases that still follow the oral phase, it must not be suppressed. The baby learns many things during this period, although it is certainly not pleasant for adults not to leave any object unattended or to get one back wet. At first, the baby learns about its surroundings in its own way. The sense of sight is not yet nearly comparable to that of an adult. Babies see shadows and blurred outlines, they can just about recognize faces in their vicinity, at a distance they see blurred. The sense of touch in the mouth, on the other hand, is well developed and takes the place of the sense of sight until the latter is more mature. In addition, the baby learns about tastes, temperatures and structures. This prepares it for the first food after breast milk. The oral phase also trains grasping and other fine motor skills. At the beginning of the oral phase, a baby grasps by using its thumb and palm. By the time the oral phase is almost over again in the ninth month (at least the high phase), the baby can use all fingers for grasping. He also practices hand-mouth coordination by repeatedly bringing his hand to his mouth. The baby develops a first, limited body awareness. The tongue, jaw and lips build muscle and strength that they will soon need to chew their first solid foods – and also to speak. Since the oral phase lasts differently for each child, and some babies can already crawl on their own when they are still in the middle of their oral phase, there are, of course, risks involved. This is because a baby does not differentiate between the perfectly safe teething ring and the toxic cleaning agent that may be within reach.
Illnesses and complaints
Unfortunately, with the oral phase often comes the baby’s first poisoning. When babies first begin to explore the world with their mouths in the third month of life, they can only grasp what is nearby or offered to them. But as soon as the little ones become mobile and can even roll and turn, they can reach things that were thought to be at a safe distance. As soon as a baby crawls, he or she should therefore be supervised to be on the safe side. How long the oral phase will last cannot be generalized with certainty, but even though much less is put in the mouth during toddlerhood, caution is advised with objects other than baby toys. Even for a four- or five-year-old, it would not be abnormal for him to put an object in his mouth in a moment lost in thought. Further difficulties may arise if a baby is deliberately forbidden to put objects in its mouth – in which case the difficulties are more psychological. Early childhood experiences and their influence on the psyche are still the subject of research today, but it is certain that there is definitely a connection between the suppression of a natural development and a person’s mental health.Of course, this does not mean that all desired objects must be put in the mouth just because the baby would like to. Rather, the baby should be offered age-appropriate chew toys with different surfaces, sizes and shapes to distract him from these things. As soon as the child understands words, it can then also be explained to him why he should not bite down on the dining table. In addition, care must be taken to keep teething toys clean – clean and not sterile. Germs are important for the development and maturation of the immune system, but teething toys should not be completely stuck together either. Illnesses are unlikely to occur if the baby licks something dirty, however, if possible, this should still be prevented.
