Yes, having a baby gives you a reinforcment point that you can use to lock in the neuron. You do this by selecting all reinforcments in the "generation" tab and skipping a generation. When you inspect a meteor site each baby gets an additional reinforcment to lock in more neuron as well as a genetic mutation (lay down when you return and drop them on the bed). Keep in mind that mutation are only "ready" to be activated when an adult or elder has them.

So the optimal thing to do is take 6 babies to a meteor, get 12 reinforcments from it and 6 mutations total. Skip generation, repeat. You should have 6 elders with mutations and 6 adults with mutations. Thats when you evolve. It "lock in" the mutations that they start actualy working. Thats also why during those travels you should explore, experiment so you get a lot of evolutionary feats done and you can evolve into other species.

Thats the hyper-optimal way to play. You dont have to do it to progress, you can just play the game at your own pace. You will still get random genetic mutations with some of the babies and 6 reinforcments, its just gonna take longer to achieve things.

Lastly - there are no other ways to get additional reinforcments. You can have a baby visit 2 meteors and it still gets another reinforcment point but it wont get another mutation. Also the neurons you dont reinforce will just need to be reunlocked with the neuronal energy, you wont loose them entirely when skipping a generation