ANATOMY

Detailed explanation-1: -Slowly, as you grew older, everything became a bit bigger, including your bones. A baby’s body has about 300 bones at birth. These eventually fuse (grow together) to form the 206 bones that adults have. Some of a baby’s bones are made entirely of a special material called cartilage (say: KAR-tel-ij).

Detailed explanation-2: -The baby skeleton has more bones and cartilages. During development many of these cartilages become bones by the process called ossification and some bones fuse to form a bigger bone reducing the number of bones to 206. Q. Babies have about 300 bones while adults have only 206.

Detailed explanation-3: -This is because a baby’s bones aren’t fully formed and are joined together with a tough but flexible tissue called cartilage, which helps protect the baby, and the mother, during birth. As a child grows, the cartilage hardens and turns to bone, fusing the parts together-a process known as ossification.

Detailed explanation-4: -An adult has 206 bones, but newborns have around 300 bones in their body. It is so because babies have more flexible cartilage in the body. While a child grows, most of the cartilage hardens and gets converted to bone.

Detailed explanation-5: -During adulthood (about 18–25 years) the occipital bone and the sphenoid bone fuse into a single unit. The frontal bone at birth consists of two halves separated by the metopic suture.