My little sister came up with this question while I was having dinner with the family last night. She wants to know why babies can cry and scream for hours and hours on end, but an adult screaming for a similar amount of time (say, at a concert or sporting event) will lose his voice.
My totally wild guess was that a baby’s vocal cords haven’t fully developed, so maybe they’re more supple and capable of handling the stress. But that sounds stupid. I promised I’d look into it for her.
So, why don’t babies lose their voices like adults do after long periods of heavy vocal action?
WAG: screaming and crying are the only ways babies can communicate their distress. So, I’m guessing the hardware has to be pretty sturdy. I would think that once a child is able to communicate with language, the ability to scream for hours lessen somewhat.
(Yes, I know, I’ve heard 5-year-olds who could outscream a heavy metal concert)
I would suggest that a baby’s ability to cry is fundamental to the survival of the human race. Inferior genetics that don’t allow for robust lungs have most likely expired over time in the long distant past. As someone who has parented helpless newborn infants in the past, when they cry, you have no choice but to damn well figure out what is their problem and deal with it or you don’t get any sleep.
Standard disclaimer: I am not a doctor. I don’t even play one on TV. This is pure speculation.
In addition to everything else that’s been said, babies voices are mostly high-pitched, and those sounds aren’t nearly as taxing on the vocal cords. Also, babies breathe with their diaphram, and therefore when they’re on their 5-hour wails, they’re mostly expending lung capacity. Adults, unless they’re professionally trained singers, generally rely on increasing pressure to the voice box when talking loudly.
My voice teacher confirmed dotchan’s hypothesis. Trained singers can go on making very loud sounds practically continuously for hours on end (think Cho-Cho-San in Madame Butterfly), because of the way they use their diaphragms and larynxes. Babies, though untrained, use their vocal equipment in the same way naturally when they’re screaming. So they can keep going for an absolutely amazing length of time.
The average screaming adult, though, is putting a lot more pressure on his/her larynx, and you can’t keep that up for very long. (In fact, frequent forcing of a loud tone in that way is one of the things that can create nodules on the vocal cords which require surgery to remove, so watch out. )
My baby loses his voice and has since he was a newborn. It hasn’t happened often, because we can usually solve whatever the problem is he’s crying about pretty quickly, but he’s gotten so upset a few times that he cried until he was hoarse and pretty much no sound was coming out, even when he was just a couple weeks old.
(don’t think we let him cry for hours or anything - it has happened even after just a few minutes of strenuous crying)
My baby hasn’t lost her voice, but she is on the way. She’s come down with some kind of congestion + fever + terrible diaper rash + diarrhea so that she is miserable, sick, always poopin’, and it hurts like hell when she does. The little bit of congestion has made her hoarse and it is just so sad to listen to.
And yes, she has a doctor’s appointment tomorrow. She was seen on Friday, and we spoke to the doctor both yesterday and today.