Schaeffer reflex

The Schaeffer reflex is a neurophysiological reflex mechanism in the central nervous system that promotes active tissue stretching. Thanks to this mechanism and the absence of active movements in infants, the muscles are in a relaxed state during the first months of life. This increases the tone of the child’s body during the first six months after birth and makes the baby more adaptive to new environmental conditions. The absence of extension movements after childbirth is one of the manifestations of the newborn reflex. Since stretching after tension is observed only with simultaneous contraction of both sections, it is possible only due to the muscles entering the stretching phase. In a newborn, both sections of both halves of the body begin to be in the stretching phase in the second minute of life.

Mechanism of the reflex In physiology, it is believed that the brain in children has a large number of receptors and is characterized by poor differentiation of the motor zones of the cerebral cortex.

Due to the receptors of the tensile vascular wall, the reflex centers (extrapyramidal system) of the brain stem establish a stretching phase in the muscles of the trunk, limbs and head, while muscle tone decreases in the direction from the head to the pelvic limbs. With a reverse wave of tonic contractions during phase relaxation of muscles, it is easy to achieve a gentle stretching of all muscle groups of the body. Consequently, the impulse from the central nervous system penetrates into the extensible part of the muscles during the phase of advanced slow sleep of newborns. Next he ends up cheating