Before our arrival in this world, we were in our mom's womb. After around nine months in the womb, we were born, and we were babies. Then we grew up. And depending on our current age, we belong in some stage of life. Those stages, one by one, make one whole life cycle. A life cycle means the stages a living thing goes through during its life. In humans, it is called a human's life cycle.
In this lesson, we are going to discuss the human life cycle or the stages of life.
The major stages of the human lifecycle include:
Let's discuss each stage of the human life cycle.
The life cycle begins with a woman's pregnancy. What is pregnancy? When an egg cell inside a woman and a sperm cell from a man fuse to form a one-celled zygote, that moment is called fertilization. The zygote looks like a bundle of cells. Over the next few days, the single, large cell divides many times, and after two to four weeks, an embryo is formed inside a woman's womb. After around 4 weeks, the embryo turns into a human's body shape. That is what we call the fetus. From the moment of fertilization after approximately 9 months, a baby is born. That period of 9 months is called pregnancy.
When a baby is born, until it makes 1 year, it is called an infant. An infant is actually a more formal or specialized synonym for baby. During this stage, babies can not talk and they are crying as a way of communication. Through the cry, they are expressing a variety of feelings. They cry when they are hungry, hot, cold, or when they feel discomfort, boredom, or simply when they want something. Babies are usually fed with mother's milk. They learn to smile, sit up, wave, clap, roll up, pick objects up, babble, and they may even start saying a few words.
A toddler means a young child who is just beginning to walk and refers to a child approximately one to 3 years old. These years are a time of great social, cognitive, and emotional development. Toddlers are moving around more, and are more aware of themselves and their surroundings than the infants. They want to explore more. But not all toddlers develop at the same rate. Development depends on many factors.
The next developmental stage of the human life cycle is childhood. It is roughly divided into early childhood and middle childhood. Early childhood is a period that follows the toddler stage and precedes formal schooling, and refers to 3-6-year-old children. In this period, children learn interaction and will start to develop interests that will stay present throughout their lives. Next is middle childhood, which covers the children between 6 and 11 years, or it is a period that starts after early childhood. That is a time when children develop basic skills for building healthy social relationships. Also, children in this period learn roles that will prepare them for the next stages of the human life cycle, like adolescence and adulthood.
The teenage years are also called adolescence. Adolescence is the stage in which a child grows into an adolescent through the period called puberty. Puberty is the process of physical changes through which a child's body matures into an adult body. Puberty usually occurs in girls between the ages of 10 and 14. In boys, it generally occurs later, between the ages of 12 and 16. During puberty, rapid changes in the body take place. After puberty, the rate of physical growth slows down. Adolescence is the transitional phase of development and growth between childhood and adulthood. This period corresponds roughly to the period between the ages of 10 and 19 years, but according to some new researches, it may last longer because of how the lives of young people today work.
People from age 20 to age 60 are considered adults. In this time their body has reached sexual maturity, or they are at the right age to reproduce. Adults can be divided into:
From that, we can talk about early adulthood, middle adulthood, and late adulthood. During each period of adulthood, many changes are present in a human's body, like hormonal changes, physical changes, and emotional changes.
Old age starts after adulthood. Although there are commonly used definitions of old age, there is no general agreement on the age at which a person becomes old. That is the last stage in the human life cycle with a lot of physical and mental characteristics.
