This is the first time we succeeded in establishing the age at which the fetus begins to hear sounds from outside. A work of Barbara Kisilevsky of Queen’s University (Canada) consistent with the hypothesis that the auditory system of the fetus develops during the seventh month.

134 fetuses bugged

And baby music The Canadian study examined 134 fetuses from 27 to 36 weeks gestation. Heart rate and fetal movements were measured using an ultrasound scanner while a computer emitted a noise. The researchers determined that before the thirtieth week of gestation, the fetus does not respond. “If we emit a loud sound – really strong (110 dB), the 30-week-old fetus to move him, but we get no response before this age,” says Dr. Kisilevsky. Nevertheless, it remains unclear what they mean and what kinds of sounds they can distinguish. According to Dr. Kisilevsky, “because the mother’s abdomen and tissues attenuate sound, we believe that the sound level reaching the fetus is in the range of 70-75 dB (which corresponds approximately to the noise level of a discussion normal) “.

Mozart makes it smart?

Ladies, you would then 7 months pregnant to choose the first sounds your child hears. However, tell your neighbors, because you need to raise the volume to 110 decibels, which is about one volume of a rock concert or a jackhammer …




Today, there is no evidence that these sounds have any influence on fetal development. According to Dr. Kisilevsky, “we assume that the voice of the mother and the fetus perceives the sounds that may impact on its development – preparing him to prefer and recognize their native language. But we do not know if your child will brighter, for example, if they perceive of music in utero, despite the notions conveyed in mainstream media. ”

2 A study from the University of Nottingham published in 1999 had found qu’exposes to music, the brains of fetuses two out of three responded. But the small number of babies studied limited the scope of research findings.

Too much stimulation even seem to have a harmful effect. Chicks stimulated by sounds before hatching, had difficulty hearing a few days after leaving the egg.

It would seem, ladies, that your CD collection of classical music or whale songs have no other purpose than to relax. Especially since the soundscape of your sweet home may soon be the scene of other songs, perhaps less melodic …

Adults and children appear unequal in food allergy. If only 3.5% of adults are subjects, almost 10% of children are concerned. How to recognize symptoms? What are the foods most commonly involved? What treatments favored? The point with Doctissimo.

Food allergies in children The gut has a very rich local immune system in the mucosa, supplemented by draining lymph node very important. This system protects the body from viral antigens, bacterial and parasitic by an effective immune response that seeks to eliminate them. The immune system must recognize the dietary protein to accept their passage through the mucosa. A food actually contains many proteins. Many of them turn out to be allergens. A food can contain forty different allergens

A predisposition to allergy

Natural tolerance to food proteins is a peculiarity foreign biologically quite original. In some children, there is a family plot called “atopic”. Atopy is a genetic predisposition to develop antibodies to the IgE class against the natural allergens (protein environment) contacting the body by natural means: skin and mucous membranes (respiratory, digestive).

Breast milk and inflammation

Food allergens are the first natural allergens in contact with the body. Indeed, we know that food allergens pass, in trace amounts in breast milk. These very low amounts of dietary protein are probably the baby’s immune system to establish its immunological tolerance. In the case of atopy, there is likely a runaway process and the creation of a food allergy. It is possible that food allergy is also favored by the existence of an inflammation of the intestinal mucosa under the influence of various factors (viral infections, stress response, destruction of intestinal flora, irritation of the gastrointestinal mucosa, presence of a parasitic or intestinal candidiasis and causes of increased intestinal permeability to protein foods).

Symptoms

The infant may become sensitized to the food very early, even in utero during pregnancy. Food allergy in infants often reaches the gastrointestinal tract (vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pain). It can cause total villous atrophy with persistent diarrhea, as is the case with gluten intolerance. In the older child, the symptoms are very different: anaphylactic shock, hives, swelling of lips and tongue, atopic dermatitis, diarrhea, vomiting, colic, eczema, asthma, ear infections repeatedly, etc.. The share of food allergy in anaphylactic shock for example is 3 to 15%. In asthma, it accounts for 8% of seizures. In atopic dermatitis (eczema), some argue the numbers 30 to 50%. More atopic dermatitis is severe, the more likely a food allergy is involved.

If food allergies can in theory apply to all foods, twenty, according to Prof. Monneret-Vautrin DA, food in France are the most commonly involved. Some allergens are responsible for 90% of allergies: eggs, saltwater fish, peanuts or peanut, hazelnut and drupacées (almond, walnut, apricot, cherry, quince, peach, apple, pear, plum, olive), milk cow, celeriac, celery salt and other Umbelliferae (anise, angelica, carrot, chervil, coriander, cumin, fennel, parsley, green pepper), crustaceans (spider crab, crab, shrimp, crayfish, lobster, langoustine, lobster ). Other foods are less frequently involved (10% of cases): exotic fruits (pineapple, banana, passion fruit, kiwi, persimmon, lychee, mango, coconut, papaya), legumes (beans, beans, peas , chickpeas, soybeans), wheat flour, mold, beef, potatoes, nuts, coconut, chicken, pork, mustard with a possible inducing role of mustard poultices in childhood.




Other allergens are exceptional: garlic, lamb, artichokes, calamari, coffee, chestnut, chocolate, red cabbage, chives, Saint-Jacques shell, squid, spices and condiments, snail, strawberry, royal jelly, rabbit, bay, lilicées, yeast baker, onion, orange, pigeon, pistachio, pollens, radishes, grapes, kidney, buckwheat, sesame, tomato …

Before age 1 year, the major allergens are egg, peanut and cow’s milk. Between 1 and 3 years, the main allergens are the egg (31%), peanuts (18%), milk (12.5%), fish (12.5%), peanut oil , mustard.

Some risk factors were identified: the diversification of supply, the widespread use and growing of food proteins added to the preparations for their industrial properties, etc.. The food industry, in fact constantly introduced new ingredients in their preparations.

Some are potentially allergenic;

New grains;
Various dried fruits (peanuts, hazelnuts, walnuts, pistachios, almonds);
Various exotic fruits (persimmon, kiwi, lychee, etc.).
Various seeds (poppy, sesame, etc.).
Various protein food additives (alpha-amylase, carmine, caseinates, vegetable gums, lysozyme, etc.).
Presence of traces of protein in vegetable oils (peanut, tree nuts, sesame, soybean, sunflower);
Allergenic proteins modified (textured soy, fish surimi, etc.).

Development of latex allergy is the cause of cross allergies with some plants. Allergy to dyes and other food additives is often suspected but difficult to prove. The main incriminated food additives are mostly synthetic azo dyes such as patent blue (E131), erythrosine (E127), cochineal red A (E124) and yellow tartrazine (E1O2).

The role of chemical preservatives is itself unclear. Most sensitizing are probably those based on sodium metabisulfite (E222 to E227). Sulfites are so widespread in the food and pharmaceutical industry that questioning them is not always possible.

The diagnosis of food allergy

The diagnosis is difficult. It requires the use of an immuno-allergist specializing in food allergy that will decide the strategy of care.

Urticarial rash after eating can be such an element of presumption. The risk of food allergy was 20% when neither parent is allergic. This risk is 40% when one parent is allergic and up to 60% when both parents are atopic. Keeping a food diary where the ingestion of all food is carefully noted the doctor can help. Skin tests, the measurement of specific IgE, challenge testing (or exclusion diets) generally allow the diagnosis.

The problem of allergens “hidden” is important. The examples are more numerous: there caseinates in the chicken, the egg white lysozyme in some cheeses (Gruyere, Emmental), for example. Peanut oil contained in some dietary milk was the cause of atopic dermatitis. Currently, the formula milks do not contain more. Observations of children sensitized to peanuts in utero revealed that pregnant mothers ate large amounts of peanuts sitting watching television.

Treatment

The absolute displacement of the food responsible should be recommended. It requires vigilance at all times when it comes to eggs, milk, peanut or soy. When an allergy to many foods is demonstrated, the regime must be established recommended by a dietician experienced in order to avoid nutritional deficiencies, especially vitamin.

Pharmacological treatment includes an anti-histamine medication and protecting the gastrointestinal mucosa of the risk of local release of histamine (cromolyn sodium: Nalcron). In case of severe allergic accidents, corticosteroids and adrenaline are necessary. When the child is at high risk of shock or acute asthma, it is necessary to fulfill a contract for custom home school as provided by the circular of July 22, 1993, No. 93-248 .

Still many unknowns about the natural history of food allergy. It is not currently possible to predict the evolution: allergy to cow’s milk proteins often heals to 5 years; the peanut allergy often persists throughout life. Many factors, not all identified, combine to that after one to three years, randomly, the child is healed, or healing, or in a stable state.

You have the latest bottle with a nipple 5 speed? We now know the make. What is the ideal position? How to calculate rations?

The ideal position to ration adapted recipe an update to give the bottle well.

Come in

Hold the child’s head in the crook of your elbow, in semi-sitting position.

Position the baby face, stroking his face gently. For he opens his mouth, stroking him of lips with the nipple and insert it gently over the tongue.

Tilt the bottle enough so that there is no air in the teat. The presence of bubbles rising to the surface in the bottle proves that the nipple is pierced and enough milk that flows well. Occasionally remove the nipple of the baby’s mouth so that he sucks does not create a vacuum that would prevent her from sucking the milk. Before you give it to him, check the patency of the teat orifice whose mouth easily. The more or less tight position of the ring which holds the teat adjusts the flow rate according to the energy of the suction and the size of the orifice of the teat. A feeding usually lasts 10 to 20 minutes.

After feeding, keep baby upright or lying face down on your knees until eructation (“rot” or return air) that occurs rapidly after 10 or 20 minutes. Sometimes a burp is necessary in the middle of the bottle. After rot, lay the child on the right side.

It is strictly recommended to install a baby so he can drink a bottle alone willing to reach.

How to calculate rations?

Rations are theoretical. From a child to another and from one day to another for the same child, actual rations consumed are variables. During the first six to eight weeks, the child is often stabilized with 6 bottles per day, or one bottle every 3 hours, possibly with a bottle of extra night. The latter can be removed between 8 and 12 weeks. It is cruel and absurd to let a baby cry from hunger at night. If it is not calmed by water is that it is hungry, not thirsty.

In your uterus, baby was fed continuously. The removal of night meal depends on the installation cycle “day-night” in your child. This biological clock is dependent on hormones and you or your pediatrician can not change it. Some mothers enrich the last bottle of the evening with a meal diastasee age 1, hoping to “fix” the stomach of the infant. This method can be attempted but rarely gives the desired results. Delaying the last bottle of the evening is also a method often attempted by desperate parents who no longer know where to turn for the haywire internal clock of the baby. Unfortunately, experience shows that this technique also fails most of the time.

Calculate the ration

Ration theory can be calculated from the following formula: the first three digits of the weight in grams + 250 = amount of milk per 24 hours divided by the number of bottles.

Example calculation:

Baby’s weight = 5 g 00 0
500 + 250 = 750
Ration: 750/5 = 5 bottles of 150 g

Each infant with its rhythm, intervals between meals may be unequal and the quantities taken at each feeding variables. The spontaneous awakening is the best indicator of the timing of meals. It should nevertheless leave 2:30 to 3:00 between two bottles. Never force your baby to finish a bottle and did not wake up to eat if asleep. Take the extra milk if the baby does not finish her ​​bottle.

Flexible hours …

Schedules bottles vary in different situations. An example of changing hours of feeding by age:

Between 0 and 2 months:
6 meals / day or one meal every three hours:
6-9-12-15-18-21 h.
Between 2 and 4 months:
5 meals / day or a meal every 4 hours:
6-10-14-18-22 h.
From 4 months:
4 meals / day is: 7-12-16-20 h.

Insufficient milk supply may have different causes. Often, one set in late is responsible. Update on this problem and ways to solve it.

The only criteria to suggest the inadequacy of milk supply are proving to be the weight curve and the number of wet diapers a day. Indeed, some babies seem content to undernourishment and show no disorder or sleep or bowel. Others, cons, sufficient food, screaming with energy after feeding and calling the “rab” …! Insufficient milk supply is experiencing multiple causes, the most important are putting in late, incomplete evacuation of the breasts, worry and fatigue of the mother often depressed, genetic factors etc.

Miracle cures …

Found in the history of mankind a number of practices are assumed to increase lactation. Infusions of various plants, invocations to St-Agathe, wearing agate jewelry, beer nurse each had their heyday. In reality, as always, common sense indicates the way forward.

Mixed feeding

If the baby continues to lose weight after the 5th day of life, or if not growing, the pediatrician will examine it to check for infection (urinary, pulmonary, etc..) Or digestive problems (diarrhea, vomiting. ..). If the clinical examination and additional tests are normal, insufficient milk supply is possible. In some cases, the pediatrician may decide on a mixed feeding. The medical decision to be taken with caution because the bottle of supplement has many disadvantages:

It increases the risk of allergy to cow’s milk protein;
It increases the risk of diarrhea;
It increases the risk of nipple confusion;
It disrupts the start of breastfeeding;
It increases the risk of flooding;
It diminishes the confidence of the mother in her ability to breastfeed;
It reduces the duration of breastfeeding.




The principle of the bottle of supplement is to give each meal a bottle of cow’s milk after feeding at the breast. It is essential that the breast is completely emptied the remaining milk by hand expression or breast pump. This concept too often forgotten is essential. Indeed, when using bottles of complement, the mother may not completely empty her breasts and the secretion of milk will decrease. The method of alternating by hours breastfeeding and bottle feeding is anti-physiological if the mother’s desire is to relaunch its milk supply. Indeed, the best way to have milk is to put the child in very often. Some drugs are sometimes used to stimulate lactation: Galactogil, vitamin E (Ephynal) Primperan …

Predict the return home

The return home at hospital discharge is a source of anxiety, worry and fatigue (postpartum depression or “baby blues”) and it is common for breast milk production will slow down on this occasion. The mother, warned of this possibility, has every incentive to seek help for household chores by her husband, a parent or family help. Abundant drinks, rest and sucking on both nipples at each feeding are the single most effective means to stimulate lactation.

Milk primarily

Diversification is the transition from exclusively milk feeding (breast milk or infant) to a variety of foods (fruits, vegetables, dairy, meat …), which must be done gradually. This diversification will allow the infant to adopt a varied diet, approaching slowly and steadily from that of adults: it is both a taste of learning but also to cover nutritional needs changing. Up diversification (which should not begin before the 5th month), milk alone covers all nutritional needs of the child. Once the diversification started, make sure to maintain 500 ml of milk per day, to ensure a balanced diet.
Gradually, baby discover the varied tastes and textures, from smooth to mashed mixed textures, and then chopped to pieces: his digestive system and its ability to chew hone skills over time.

How to proceed?

From the chosen date, we can introduce foods slowly and carefully, while keeping the milk as a staple food or breast milk is the second age 6 months.

To start:

Replace the water bottle at noon by the cooking of vegetables and decrease the proportion of milk that is gradually replaced by mixed vegetables. We will then complete the meal with a natural dairy (yogurt, cottage cheese …). Think about giving one vegetable at a time to educate the taste and learn the different flavors of baby food. Alternatively keep the feeding or bottle of milk and give by spoon the mashed vegetables.
Vary the vegetables available: carrots, green beans, spinach, zucchini (peeled and seeded), leeks, pumpkins, there is a choice! Avoid too fibrous vegetables, and not to start with foods taste very first line (asparagus, cabbage): they will come after. The potatoes will be added to the vegetable soup as a binder.
Do not forget the fruit: the infant preferring the sweet way innate, make sure to have begun before the vegetables begin to enjoy the fruit. Cooked or ripe, mixed in all cases, the taste is the best time to introduce them. Apple, peach, pear, apricot, plum, make it taste a little of everything!
Do also enjoy meat and fish: cooked and mixed, simply mixed with the mashed vegetables. The quantities are minimal (in the range of a teaspoon).
Do not forget to melt a knob of butter on the mashed potatoes, which will enhance the taste of vegetables and provide essential fatty acids.




From 1 year

In parallel, milk remains the key to early childhood development. Care must be taken to keep in power the amount of milk recommended at each stage of diversification because it provides the nutrients essential for building the baby: calcium, protein, minerals and vitamins.
Once feeding well diversified, you can upgrade to “growing up milk” (from 1 year) that replaces the milk until the second age 3 years, at 500 ml per day. Recommended by pediatricians because its nutritional composition is more suitable for children of this age, this milk contains less protein. It is also enriched with iron, essential fatty acids and vitamins. However, it is not forbidden to give cow’s milk occasionally and use in processed milk (custards, purees). You can make donations to the infant dairy products from time to time by giving them priority “for young children” up to 18 months.
From 3 years, one can directly give cow’s milk, preferably whole for the vitamins and lipids necessary for its construction.

Take good habits

For a healthy baby on his plate, think …

Do not salt or sweeten foods that you enjoy doing.
To respect his tastes and appetite: his body is quite capable of adapting to his needs.
To respect the rhythm of four meals daily (breakfast, lunch, tea and dinner). This allows them to learn to control his appetite and develop good eating habits that will keep all his life. Attention to nibbling, confusing pace of food and appetite shift.
Avoid fried foods, but to add fat on raw food, like butter that melts with the heat.
Not to suggest that water to thirsty if the child: syrups and soft drinks are not recommended.

New tastes, new flavors, new textures: Diversification is the time of discovery!

The child of 3 or 4 weeks seems to listen with fascination his mother. He stares at her, open and close his mouth and looks interested in the conversation. He chatters and babbles when he heard his mother speak or sing.

The smile in heaven

Baby’s first smile To six weeks, he began to smile when she looks after him. This genuine smile is coupled with an intensification of gaze and a vocalization. It is therefore quite different from “the angels smile” which is actually a reflex caused by internal incentives. St. Anne Dargassies found that half of term infants respond to stimulation with smiles between one and two months. It distinguishes this looks brilliant smile with the smile of food or “smile in heaven” which almost always occurs when the baby’s eyes are closed. In this regard, a blind baby starts to smile in the same time that a baby who sees: that smile is triggered by the voice, physical contact or the perception of the breath of the mother.

The baby smiles communicate a whole range of emotions from happiness to the anxious waiting, thanks to the salvation, etc.. At this stage, the behavior of the mother in turn modify and adapt to specific perceptions of her child: the language acquires high tones, becomes slower, the facial expressions are enriched expression less fleeting. The child then changed his behavior: his breathing, his head movements, the direction of his gaze change.

Affective relationships and early

Baby communications

Baby needs love! Affective relations of toddlers are essential to their welfare and development. This caring family environment is essential. Not to mention the objects that surrounds baby, whether it’s security blanket or pacifier. Then they grow up, baby acquires more autonomy, while in parallel the language evolves, and that his vocabulary grows. A short guide emotional relationships and baby’s first words.

A very strong emotional

Affective – Baby Affective relationships are very important for the baby. From birth, it is very fusion with his mother. And gradually growing up, changing the emotional is associated with the development of his personality. Not forgetting his security blanket, which is his first friend. Check out these links will first build the character of the human becoming.

Just come into the world, infants are sometimes abused. Angered by their tears, some adults shake the child to be quiet. This gesture of nervousness is far from insignificant, it can cause irreversible neurological damage and death of the baby in 10% of cases.

Figures that stir … 230 infants were recruited in four years at the Necker Hospital in Paris likely victims of “shaken baby syndrome”. Presented at a roundtable on the subject, these data have been advanced by Prof. Dominique Renier (Department of Neurosurgery – University Hospital Necker-Sick Children – Paris), who recognizes in his department to receive more and more babies who died of too violent a shock.

Serious consequences of an abuse

Shaken Baby Also called shaking impact syndrome, this abuse has dramatic neurological consequences. Angered by the crying, tired, nerves on edge, parents or babysitters crack too violently agitated and nervous child. Shaken like a plum tree, the brain will then be crushed against the skull, creating bleeding, significant damage to the tissues and swelling of the brain. Far from trivial, these actions can cause death of the child. The severity of the injury depends on the strength and size of the child.
With a head too heavy and too weak neck muscles, a violent shaking may damage certain veins and create a hematoma … sometimes fatal. Professor Renier adds that “during the first year, the space between the brain and meninges is expanded, and the veins that cross it are at risk of shear failure during sudden shocks, and even more so that the infant’s head, heavy with the rest of the body, is poorly maintained by the neck muscles too weak “.




Lifelong consequences

These are babies under six months are most vulnerable. Boys are more affected than girls and 60% of victims. “In boys under one year, there is more space between the brain and the skull than in girls. These physiological reasons for containing too large in relation to content explains the higher proportion of victims in babies male, “says Prof. Dominique Renier.

In the days or weeks after an episode of violent shaking:

10% of babies die,
25% suffer from hemiplegia, mental retardation age, blindness, intractable epilepsy …
50% will inherit a poor prognosis: controlled epilepsy, paralysis punctual, mental retardation, etc. … ;
Only less than one in four children will come out without sequelae.

According to Dr. Maria Cecilia Nassogne (already causing other publications on the subject 2) who studied 35 cases over 15 years, the results would be even heavier: 92% of children suffer from a shaken mental retardation or learning disabilities in the following six years.

Portrait of a Serial shaker

The shaken baby syndrome is the result of abuse sometimes unconscious. Once administered first aid, should be to consider the circumstances to avoid the risk of recurrence. The victim was not able to report the facts, it is unclear whether the lesions are the result of an intentional or unintentional brutality. “In almost all cases, the truth will be approached step by step. It is exceptional that the causative trauma is unique and clearly identifiable. The executioners martyred child of parents in this age, we did ‘have never met. Everything is more insidious, subtle and nuanced “concludes Professor Renier.

In Canada, where this problem has been the subject of various research, three quarters of perpetrators are male:

Fathers between 30 and 50% of authors;
The friends of the mother 20%;
Babysitters or caretakers / guardians of 10 to 20%;
Most authors are under 25 years.

When parents feel uncontrollable anger rise, they must ask for help without waiting for a relative, a doctor or a pediatrician. They must also be sufficiently confident about the person to whom they entrust the care of their child.

Across the Atlantic, this syndrome has been the subject of various prevention campaigns as the clear “Never shake a baby!” (Do not ever shake a baby!) 3. In France, a national campaign for the general public is expected before the end of the year. “The information leaflets, brochures … everything is ready! The ball is now in the camp of the Ministry” we said Professor Renier.

Welcome home

Out of motherhood, your child arrives in his furniture. Both emotionally and environmentally baby takes up space. That invest part of their parents’ room or he has a room of its own, baby already has a territory of its own.

Rethink your home based on the new arrival to avoid incidents and accidents. The ideal is to have a room for the child. Otherwise, you can create a corner in the insulation with a screen.

Floor coverings

Welcome home The floors are at risk of splinters and maintenance is not easy. However, you can nuke them. The tile is often a cold contact for the child lying on the floor. The carpet is nice but is a trap harmful dust in cases of allergy. The cleaner must be spent every day. The mats are responsible for many falls if they are not secure. Washable plastic coverings (linoleum, etc..) Are a good solution but remain cold.

The walls

The pastel colors are more relaxing than exciting colors like red and green. Maintenance should be easy (or washable wallpaper washable paint), because the child later gribouillera above.

The interior

Modern outlets have been designed so that the child can not keep fingers. Protect taken by former outlet covers (or tape if …). Furniture should be stable and easy maintenance, and avoid dust traps (carpets, curtains, ornaments, etc..). Curtains, sufficiently opaque, non-flammable fabric, must be securely attached so they can not fall and suffocate children. The curtain cords are causing accidents: Keep in the bed.

Safety barriers must be placed in the windows, front doors and stairs. Choose door models rather than the lattice devices, complicated to use and sometimes dangerous for little fingers. Corner protectors of flexible plastic, adhesives, can adapt to the corners of furniture and mitigate shocks. The bilge-doors avoid slamming doors.

Some prefer to change their child before feeding, after the other. If you change it before he could fulfill his bed during the meal, if you change it after, you might wake him while he was asleep, sated …. So the choice is yours! Anyway you should change it at every meal and never leave it with dirty buttocks.

Do not undress completely change each baby. Simply find the lower body and increasing slightly the bra. Sleepers or pajamas closed in the back with a bridge closure are great for the exchange.

1 – Lie baby on a clean towel.

2 – Open the layer. With the pan front of the diaper, wipe the buttocks and fold down on itself by placing it under the buttocks;

Change baby 3 – Clean the buttocks with a clean washcloth or cotton soaked with water and soap. You can also use a lotion or wipes are handy when on the move and we must change baby anywhere. The toilet of the buttocks must be done from top to bottom, from cleaner to dirtier;

4 – Remove the dirty diaper and put the specific exchange;

5 – Gently dry the buttocks with a towel paying particular attention to skin folds. You can complete the change by applying a cream that will protect the seat of irritant contact of urine and feces by a will and prevent redness. Using talcum powder is useless, it may soak into the folds of baby and cause irritation;

6 – Center the layer so that the fasteners are to the navel. If baby is a boy, put the rod down so it does not wet the belly!

7 – In case of diaper rash, apply generously of eosin on the buttocks and then expose them to air as long as possible. This will limit accidents by providing a layer of cotton and a mattress pad under baby! Then apply a generous diaper cream.

8 – Never leave the changing table. A fall is Real!

Premature birth often leaves marks in the psychological, intellectual and motor of a child between one third and half of preterm infants after only 25 weeks gestation-guard disabilities more or less important, such as disturbed language, visual impairment, gait disturbance … These effects depend on the degree of prematurity but also the quality of care to the newborn. But if significant progress has been made ​​in this area, their results were primarily to live babies born more prematurely, at the expense of further development. However, some teams are trying to create favorable conditions to compensate for the brevity of his stay in the womb. This is the case at the Queen Mother’s Hospital in Glasgow, where a particular approach is implemented, with apparently positive results.

Recreate the living conditions of the uterus

The method of the Glasgow team has two goals: to recreate as much as possible the conditions of life in the womb, by limiting the external stresses, and try to implement real reform measures to avoid deficits take hold.

To achieve the first objective, the neonatal intensive care unit is bathed in darkness and silence unusual in most other hospital services. Many children are buried in a flexible cushion makes sense to replace the flexibility and softness of the uterine cocoon.

Strengthen the role of psychologists

To prevent small deficits are moving towards disabilities, the service uses a variety of specialists, including psychologists, physiotherapists and speech therapists. Thus, some premature babies do not they have the sucking reflex, which normally take place later in the development of speech. Speech therapists are trying to develop this reflex using pacifiers. It is the same for reflex movements normally present at birth and who may lack in premature babies whose brain has not had time to complete its maturation. The aim is to stimulate early brain activity and straining the muscles for the child is more likely to catch up.

Psychologists are finally here to support parents and teach them to communicate with this baby so fragile and yet so far in his incubator.

According to the team, the first results are quite encouraging: very premature babies leave the hospital sooner and seem to have a more favorable development. But it would take another several years to properly evaluate the value of this approach.