Premature Babies and their future development
Premature babies are those born before 37 weeks gestation. The normal pregnancy is 40 weeks gestation. Babies born prematurely have not had the opportunity for full brain development before birth. This means that in the early months after birth their milestones may be a little behind when compared with babies born full term. However the gap narrows over time. The areas that they may need a little help with can be their motor skills and more predictably their cognitive and speech and language skills. It is completely natural and understandable to make comparisons with friend’s term babies but do remember that in the case of your premature baby you need to make allowances for your baby’s period of prematurity as they need time to catch up and may take their first two years to do so.
There are a number of useful tips set out below that can be employed in order to compensate for the difficult start a premature baby can have. As parents, you can have an active role in helping your child at home.
Children born prematurely are often late to talk. We now know that 30% of preterm toddlers will have difficulty with language at 24 months corrected age. You cannot talk to your baby enough. Children can learn the sounds of language by listening to their parents and imitating what they hear. Talk to and listen to your child and don’t have him competing with the background noises of a radio or TV. When talking, ensure that your child can fully see your face and that he has good eye contact with you so that he can see your lips move and observe your facial reactions. Read to your child every day (use picture books/dictionaries for babies).Ask your child to identify objects in a picture by pointing and when they can speak ask them to name objects. Read in an interactive manner by asking questions about what you have read – ‘what’s the cat doing in the picture?’., ‘Why did the bird fly away?’ . Label objects in your home. Play ‘I spy’. Sort objects/ pictures into categories for example fruit, vegetables, furniture.
By two years of age your child should be able to respond to simple instructions, have a wide single word vocabulary and be able to imitate 2 word utterances /use 2 – 3 word sentences. If your child is making no effort to communicate at all by 2 years corrected age, seek professional advice and arrange to see a speech and language therapist. A hearing test needs to be performed to rule out hearing loss.
Cognitive Development
To build up your child’s cognitive skills engage him in activities using shapes, pegboards, simple hide and seek activities of objects/toys, simple 2 – piece jigsaw puzzles, creative play opportunities. Language related cognitive activities should be introduced at around two years of age depending on your child’s language skills for example, by asking your child to match and discriminate pictures, match colours ( using and presenting different coloured blocks for him to match), distinguish between sizes big and little, and distinguish colours.
Fine Motor Development
This can be encouraged by drawing activities using crayons for spontaneous scribbling, building blocks (duplo / lego snap together materials), tasks, play dough, hammering activities opening and closing lids on bottles, play with construction toys, placing small objects like peas /cheerios into a plastic bottle and placing stickers on sticker picture books.
Gross Motor Skills
Give your baby periods of supervised play time with freedom to kick and reach for hanging mobile toys, tummy time on a play mat to facilitate head and neck control, later opportunities to sit up unaided, to crawl and cruise around furniture to aid independent walking – a pull along toy or trolly of blocks will help also. Ball games are fun and aid coordination, strength and fitness.
Attention and Memory Skills
Produce one or two toys to play with at a time. This will decrease distractibility and the tendency to flit from toy to toy without attending appropriately to one toy. Make sure that your child is looking at you when you are giving him instructions on how to use a toy or puzzle board. If necessary gently hold his head up to gain eye - contact with you.
Don’t over do or stimulate your child as you will make fun and learning a chore instead of enjoyment. Enjoy observing your baby’s development.
