25/11/2025
🥶 Why do babies get cold so easily?
👶 Babies aren’t just small - they’re built differently:
🔹 They have thin skin and less fat
Newborns have thin skin and very little of the fat that generates heat. This makes them lose heat quickly.
🔹 Immature nervous system
The part of the brain that controls temperature isn’t fully developed in infants which means their body can’t adjust as efficiently to temperature changes through shivering or sweating.
🔹 They have high surface-area-to-volume ratio
They lose heat faster than adults simply because there’s more surface area for heat to escape.
🔹 They have immature blood flow control
Adults can constrict blood vessels in the skin to conserve heat, but infants’ vasoconstriction response (where the blood vessels narrow reducing blood flow near the surface of the skin to keep blood warm in the core of the body) is weak, so heat escapes more easily.
❄️ So make sure you wrap your baby up on these cold days ensuring they don’t get too hot. The best way to check if they are getting too warm is to check the temperature of their neck or chest and if it feels warm or clammy remove a layer. And remember, hats are just for outdoors. They should be removed once you’re inside 👍
