Test #2 was returned and discussed.

Then we went on to discuss development in the first two years, including aspects of the lst chapter that relate to the post-natal period.

  THE TRANSITION TO PARENTHOOD

• The mother needs to recover from childbirth and adjust to massive hormonal shifts in her body.

• The father needs to become a part of this new threesome while supporting the mother in her recovery.

• The demands of new parenthood often lead to a mild decline in a couple’s marital satisfaction but the fathers’ participation in infant care enhances the marital relationship.

• Parenthood also causes husbands and wives to assume more traditional gender roles.

• Women typically experience a more difficult period of adaptation to new parenthood.

• Postponing childbearing until the late twenties or thirties eases the transition to parenthood.

• Social support is very helpful in making this transition.

And on to the new infant.. 
Birth is an event , and though dramatic, it is just one point in the process of development.  Yhe development of the new infant's capabilities  is well under way before birth, and the newborn comes into the world equipped to learn very rapidly. 

  THE NEWBORN BABY’S CAPACITIES 

        A.   Reflexes 

1.  A reflex is an inborn, automatic response to a particular form of stimulation. The newborn's reflexes provide the behavioral building blocks for future learning.

2.  Some reflexes have adaptive (survival) value. For example, the rooting reflex helps a breast-fed baby find the mother’s nipple. Other reflexes may have had significance in our evolutionary past, but no longer serve a special purpose. A few reflexes form the basis for more complex motor skills that will develop later. (For example, the tonic neck reflex may prepare the baby for voluntary reaching. If the stepping reflex is exercised regularly, babies are likely to walk several weeks earlier than if it is not practiced.) Researchers believe the disappearance of most newborn reflexes during the first 6 months of life is due to the infant’s gradual increase in voluntary control over behavior.

Reflexes provide a way of assessing how normally the baby’s nervous system is developing; retention of some reflexes may indicate delayed development.

        B.  States of arousal

1.      States of arousal are different degrees of sleep and wakefulness. Often at first, infants  infants move in and out of these states throughout the day and night. Striking individual differences in daily rhythms exist that affect parents’ attitudes toward and interactions with baby.

      a.    REM sleep:      During irregular rapid-eye-movement (REM) sleep, the brain and parts of the body are active—eyes dart beneath the lids and heart rate, blood pressure, and breathing are uneven. REM sleep accounts for 50 percent of the newborn’s sleep time. Young infants are believed to have a special need for the stimulation of REM sleep because they spend little time in the alert state—REM sleep seems to be the way the brain stimulates itself. Also, rapid eye movements protect the health of the eye.
b.         During regular non-rapid-eye-movement (NREM) sleep, the body is quiet, and heart rate, breathing, and brain wave activity are slow and regular.
c.         Observations of sleep states can help identify central nervous system abnormalities.

2.    Quiet wakefulness lasts for only short periods initially.  Crying is the first way that babies communicate their physical needs. Crying stimulates strong feelings of arousal and discomfort in men and women, parents and nonparents.

        C.  Sensory Capacities 

1.      Touch helps stimulate physical and emotional development. Sensitivity to touch, pain, and temperature change is present at birth.   

2.      Taste: Babies are born with the ability to communicate their taste preferences. They prefer sweet (breast milk is sweet) , are indifferent to salty and indicate by facial expression an aversion to  sour or bitter flavors.

3.      Smell: The responsiveness of infants to the smell of certain foods is similar to that of adults, which suggests that some odor preferences are innate.  A newborn infant is attracted to the odor of her own mother’s lactating breast. This helps her to find a food source and to identify her own mother. 

4.      Hearing: Newborns prefer complex sounds such as voices and noises. There are only a few speech sounds that newborns cannot discriminate, and their ability to perceive speech sounds outside their language is more precise than an adult’s. Newborns prefer speech that is high-pitched and expressive.

      5.      Vision: Vision is the least mature of the newborn baby’s senses. Newborns cannot focus their eyes very well and their visual acuity, or fineness of discrimination, is limited. Still, newborns explore their environment by scanning it for interesting sights and tracking moving objects. They are drawn to look at contrasts between black and white,  and they prefer colored rather than gray stimuli.

 Next we discussed the two ways that physical growth and development of motor control in the first two years are organized; though different, they occur simultaneously: 
cephalocaudal ('head to tail') trend and the proximodistal ('near to far') trend.  Motor abilities develop along these patterns much as they did during the  development of the embryonic and fetal periods. Arms and legs grow and develop before the feet and hands. Infants can deliberately wave their whole arms around long before they can intentionally use the fine muscles of their hands, and they are 'expert' with the use of their hands long before they are using the feet to walk.

Other than the prenatal period, the first two years after birth are the most dramatic in terms of growth and physical development. Length and weight gains occur in 'growth spurts', with some periods showing slow or no change and then suddenly, even overnight, rapid growth is seen. Just before a growth spurt the baby is often restless, cranky and wants to eat much more often.

Body fat increases from birth until around the time the infant begins to become mobile. This serves as a layer of insulation which helps regulate body temperature and stores energy for the burst of activity to come (crawling and walking). This increase in body fat is NOT a predictor of future obesity in all but the most extreme cases (which are usually due to metabolic problems). Once the infant becomes a toddler, he or she will naturally slim down.

The head is the body part closest to its' adult size at birth, and it continues to grow and develop rapidly during the first two years; it is almost adult size by age three. While the full complement of neurons are present before birth, the growth of the brain is due to the growing number of links between neurons and the myelinization of many of these nerve fibers. At birth, the skull has loose sutures and 'soft' spots (fontanelles) that allow for the bones to continue to expand; gradually the suters close and the fontanelles close over into solid bone as the brain reaches full size. Experience plays a major role in shaping the highly 'plastic' functions of the infant brain; many of the neurons present at birth eventually disappear as they are never used, and the ones that are used frequently strengthen their connections to other neurons, forming more and more efficient pathways for the transmission of information. 

VIDEO: First we saw "Building Better Brains", nightline segment that described an early intervention program for all infants that is being conducted in Vermont. The video demonstrated the effects on the child's brain due to the lack of stimulation; extreme neglect results in a smaller skull surrounding a shrunken brain. The premise of the Vermont program is that if we provide rich experiences in infancy, we will make long-term improvements in healthy brain development for the future child and adult.

 This video also demonstrated the need for people to learn HOW to parent infants and young children in order to provide the optimal environment for development. One area from the last chapter that we didn't discuss was how new parent adjust to the role of parenting...

We also saw part of a video on brain development ("The Secret Life of The Brain", part one) that outlined a special program of care for the pre-term infant.

Interventions for Preterm Infants
a.         Preterm babies are usually cared for in special beds called isolettes that protect infants from infection and aid in  temperature regulation. This care takes place in a bright, busy, noisy environment, the infant ICU.
b.         Physical needs that would ordinarily lead to close human contact are met mechanically through medical devices.
c.         The preterm infant may suffer developmental difficulties later in childhood as a result of overstimulation at this critical time in their development.

Special Infant Stimulation for the preterm infant:

1.  Stimulation of the preterm infant involving gentle motion, touch, or audio awareness promotes growth, more predictable sleep patterns, and alertness. 

2. Close, skin-to-skin contact with the mother fosters oxygenation of the baby’s body, improved temperature regulation and feeding, and infant survival.

3. The amount and kind of stimulation must be carefully adjusted to fit the baby’s individual needs.

We saw part of a video on brain development in infants and toddlers in which a pediatrician is researching the effects of this kind of special treatment of preterm infants to see if some of these developmental difficulties can be prevented.