First Haircut (interesting world culture )

So, my niece was just born in Argentina. She had a full head of hair. Then we start seeing all these pics posted of her first haircut. WTH? She's like 3 days old. Why are you cutting her hair? I asked my half-brother and he said he didn't know why. It was just tradition. So I thought I'd do a little digging. And it turns out, it's a big deal in a lot of other countries. Here's what I found.

In hispanic culture, a baby will often get their haircut soon after birth. The traditional argument is a shaved head will grow back hair that is cut will grow back thicker and straighter. As we all know this is an old wives tale. In reality, most people think the tradition came over from Spain where the same tradition is still practiced.

But where did the Spanish get the tradition? From the Moors occupying Spain between 800-1400s. The Moors and muslims in particular had a tradition that you cut off a baby's hair and weigh it. Whatever the weight is, you give that weight in gold or silver to a charity.

Other first haircuts include:

Hindu- hair is shaved off at birth because it is associated with hair from previous lives and is therefore unpure

Mongolia- the first haircut for boys is in even years and the girls get their haircut in odd years before the age of 5. They're given presents from the entire village.

Polynesian is somewhat similar. Everyone in a town or village will give a gift to a child for his first haircut.

Old Polish: A boy would be looked after by his mother before his first haircut and by the father after the haircut. Wouldn't happen till 7-10 YO.

I have to wonder, did a lot of these traditions develop around high infant mortality rates? A child was so likely to die, it wasn't truly celebrated by the community until it lived long enough to see it's first birthday?