WHEN human babies were born, they have around 300 bones in their body. As they reach adult-hood, we are left with only 206.
This is because many of the bones fuse[ihc-hide-content ihc_mb_type=”show” ihc_mb_who=”2,3″ ihc_mb_template=”1″ ] together to form hard and long bones so as to provide mechanical support to the body. The number of bones in a baby also includes cartilage-type structures that end up ossifying as part of normal skeletal development. The cartilagenous structures and having more, smaller bones allows the baby to be born more easily.
Cartilage is a rubber-like padding that covers and shields the ends of long bones at the joint It is basically a smooth, elastic tissue that can be readily found in the ears, rib cage, nose and other parts of the body. Cartilage is neither as strong as bone nor as flexible as muscle. As the baby grows, cartilage is replaced by bone matrices, where calcium salts (that babies get from their diet) are laid to form hardened bones. This is the reason why adults have fewer bones than babies, because for babies, many small bony segments fuse together to form a single bone. [/ihc-hide-content]
