By unconditioned reflexes is meant the totality of the behavioral characteristics of a person with whom he is born. They do not require development and training and vary slightly with age, being dominant in everything that a particular individual does or how he behaves. Moreover, a complex set of unconditioned reflexes is called instinct - a form of human life, which ensures the conservation of the species, the implementation of self-preservation and eating behavior.
Classification of unconditioned reflexes subdivides them into specific species, united in groups. Among them are simple tendon and visceral reflexes. Complex is defensive, food, sexual. Therefore, the concept of "unconditional" includes sexual, eating behavior and self-preservation, as well as a grasping reflex, breath holding, reflexes of the proprio sensitivity system, as well as coughing. Among the simple ones, there are many reflexes realized due to the segmental apparatus of the spinal cord, the meaning of which relates to autonomic reactions and unconscious behavior.
The birth of a child is accompanied by a number of specific conditions, due to which the birth and stay in the neonatal period are partially protected from external conditions, provided the mother is present, as this ensures close contact with her. In this case, the most remarkable unconditioned reflexes are search, food, grasping. Over the course of their life, they, in addition to the food, fade away somewhat, and conditional ones, that is, those that require an incentive for their development, are formed to replace them. For example, if you put the baby immediately after birth on the mother’s stomach, then he instinctively begins to look for the nipple, although during this period he is not hungry, and feeding is not a priority for both the woman in labor and the baby. Moreover, this technique is used in obstetrics to establish a mother-child relationship, which later promotes feeding and lactation. Also, the child tries to catch the smell of the mother, after which almost none of the other women will be able to breastfeed him.
Another noteworthy reflex with which a person is born is the ability to independently hold his breath at the moment of contact of the head with water. In the womb, the fetus is constantly surrounded by fluid, and independent breathing due to lung development in the very last trimester is impossible. In addition, the child does not experience hypoxic and hypercapnic stimuli, and the surfactant that opens them is not present in the alveoli. Therefore, in the aquatic environment, these unconditioned reflexes, despite their presence, do not appear, and after birth, babies are able to hold their breath while swimming.
Despite the fact that sexual instinct and self-preservation are congenital reflexes of a person, their manifestation is impossible at an early age. Here the situation is directly opposite to eating behavior, because in the period from 1 year to 4, although this interval is strictly individual, the instinct of self-preservation is inferior to the desire to examine the environment, and the sexual reflex does not develop, since there is no data in the central nervous system about the opposite sex.
The grasping unconditioned reflexes of a person are manifested even in the fetus, as evidenced by its presence in experiments in premature babies, which appeared due to cesarean section. This reflexive behavioral reaction is probably a phylogenetic trace, the remainder of previous organisms. It manifests itself in the form of flexion of the fingers and squeezing of an object that irritates the palmar surface. In conditions when a person did not live in a civilized world, these unconditioned reflexes helped to fix the child to the mother’s neck and be held on her hands. The compression force of the hand, even at the time of newborn, is sufficient to support its own weight: by putting a finger in the palm of a child, you can simply lift it.