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Physiology: Newborns lack the ability of thermogenesis due to underdeveloped shivering mechanism. Body heat is lost through conduction, convection, and radiant heat. [ 1 ] Thermoregulation is achieved through several methods: the metabolism of brown fat and Kangaroo care, also known as skin to skin.
[2] [3] There are four avenues of heat loss: convection, conduction, radiation, and evaporation. If skin temperature is greater than that of the surroundings, the body can lose heat by radiation and conduction. But, if the temperature of the surroundings is greater than that of the skin, the body actually gains heat by radiation and conduction ...
Convection-cooling is sometimes loosely assumed to be described by Newton's law of cooling. [6] Newton's law states that the rate of heat loss of a body is proportional to the difference in temperatures between the body and its surroundings while under the effects of a breeze. The constant of proportionality is the heat transfer coefficient. [7]
A correction to Newton's law concerning convection for larger temperature differentials by including an exponent, was made in 1817 by Dulong and Petit. [6] (These men are better-known for their formulation of the Dulong–Petit law concerning the molar specific heat capacity of a crystal.)
Thermoregulation is the ability of an organism to keep its body temperature within certain boundaries, even when the surrounding temperature is very different. A thermoconforming organism, by contrast, simply adopts the surrounding temperature as its own body temperature, thus avoiding the need for internal thermoregulation.
Human heat-loss mechanisms are limited primarily to sweating (which dissipates heat by evaporation, assuming sufficiently low humidity) and vasodilation of skin vessels (which dissipates heat by convection proportional to the temperature difference between the body and its surroundings, according to Newton's law of cooling).
The Rayleigh number can be understood as the ratio between the rate of heat transfer by convection to the rate of heat transfer by conduction; or, equivalently, the ratio between the corresponding timescales (i.e. conduction timescale divided by convection timescale), up to a numerical factor.
The rate of heat loss is determined, as with any object, by convection, conduction, and radiation. [15] The rates of these can be affected by body mass index, body surface area to volume ratios, clothing and other environmental conditions. [46] Many changes to physiology occur as body temperatures decrease.