Difficult start
Even with our best efforts, babies may come into the world with challenges. Early intervention with gentle, effective support and a home program can change the arc of your child’s development.
Your baby may have endured prenatal issues, an intense birth or hard newborn days. Some infants experience developmental delay with lagging milestones. Other children are hindered by more profound challenges.
Prenatal issues
- Was your baby restricted in movement in utero?
- Was your pregnancy very stressful?
- Did your baby or babies arrive prematurely?
Your baby’s in utero experience may have significant impacts on their body and emotional states. Pain and stress during pregnancy can impact your growing baby inside, as well as resulting in a more difficult birth.
Restricted movement during pregnancy, from desk jobs to bedrest, not only limits a mother’s ability to move, but so restricts your baby’s movement. Movement restrictions may affect the alignment of your baby’s bones, resulting in problems with difficult birth, breastfeeding, unusual shape of eyes and ears, and unusual movement patterns.
Difficult birth
- Did you & baby have a very intense labor?
- Did you & baby have a very long labor?
- Did you & baby have a very short intense labor?
- Was your baby stuck during labor?
- Was a vacuum or forceps used to bring your baby out?
- Did you have an emergency cesarean?
Birth can be powerful and empowering. Yet, the intensity of a baby’s birth journey can make a deep imprint on his body, including displaced cranial, neck, or shoulder bones.
How your baby makes her birth journey creates a template for her lifelong approach to learning and how she processes emotions. Was your baby able to actively partner in a vaginal, mostly unmedicated birth, or was he passive in an assisted or surgical birth?
A very difficult birth may create trauma or shock that affects many systems of the child, both physical and emotional. Mothers may also be in trauma or shock after a difficult birth.
Newborn experiences
The first hours of meeting you and all his first experiences imprint your vulnerable baby.
- Are you and baby struggling to connect because everything is so hard?
- Did your newborn experience problems right at the start? Difficulties breathing?
- Was your baby separated from you at birth?
- Did you newborn undergo medical procedures?
- Did she have ongoing challenges with breastfeeding?
- Do you have other concerns for your newborn?