In delivery room scenes on TV and in the movies, the mother-to-be, often a famous actress in full makeup and with every hair in place, "delivers" a baby after a few token grunts and groans. Seconds later, the doctor presents the glowing parents with a picture-perfect, neatly combed and scrubbed, cooing several-month-old infant, who, if he were any older, probably could walk out of the delivery room on his own.

Contrast that picture with how a baby really looks just after emerging from the womb: bluish, waterlogged, covered with blood and cream-cheesy glop, and battered as though he has just been in a fistfight - and lost. Not a pretty sight.

The fact that your newborn doesn't resemble one of those Hollywood "stand-ins" shouldn't come as a great surprise. Remember that the fetus develops immersed in fluid, folded up in an increasingly cramped space inside the uterus. The whole process usually culminates with the baby being pushed forcibly through a narrow, bone-walled birth canal, sometimes requiring the assistance of metal forceps or suction devices.

Still, it helps to remember two things: (1) usually, the features that may make a normal newborn look strange are temporary, and (2) in the eyes of the adoring parent, every infant looks like the "Gerber baby" anyway.

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