From conception, the first trimester of the baby is full of development, cells multiply at a rapid rates, to pave way for the fast development and of the baby. Care at this point is paramount until the final journey to birth. A baby is born into the harsh, cold world, a world full of disorder, stress and confusion.
Although a baby can not really verbalize, realize and visualize his feelings and environment, some scientists believe that even before birth the fetus is aware of what is taking place. From the time of birth, the newborn need tender care, including gentle strokes and skin to skin contact. It is generally believe that after birth the first 12 hours between the baby and his parents, the baby need to be with the mother to create a bond of intimacy.
Similarly, the mother must clued to the baby at this time to stroke, snuggle and look at each other to create this natural bond and attachment together with the security he needed for the growth and well being of the of the baby.
Instinctively, parents reach out, cuddle, stroke and snuggle their newborn to create a bonding of security, attachment, belonging and oneness that shall remain for the rest of their life, this will be the factor that will cause the baby to quickly responds to the parents attention whenever call upon in future. The power of this bond is so strong that parents will make sacrifices to care for the infant without letup, otherwise the baby may wilt and die.
It is in this regards that cause Doctors to release newborn babies to their mothers immediately after cleanup such that this mutual bond will be created. Despite the emphasis given by the health professionals, some mothers finds it difficult to create this bond with their newborn especially if the sex of the sex of the baby is not to their choice and sometimes because of the danger of transmission of infection to the baby.
From 6 months after birth, the child is an aware, reacting human being who leads an active emotional, psychological and physical feelings of life. Though the baby may not remember the stressful experience of birth, but there are some traces that such stress may affect the baby in his later life.
Accordingly, this stress continues after birth, but this time outside the mother's womb as the baby is no longer fed automatically since the natural pipelines that convey oxygen and nutrients are disconnected and all gone living the baby with the only option of being fed by the parents for him to survive. The parents are responsible for other physical,emotional, psychological and environmental care of the baby.
Outside the caring responsibility, there arose another important aspects that must be tackle equally by the parents, and this has to do with development as the newborn must develop mentally, physically, emotionally, spiritually, environmentally and otherwise into the system. Development at this stage must be nurtured by the parents who is their care giver.
Above all newborn need nutrition, good health, clean and healthy environment, exercise and rest etc. All these are responsibilities that must be provided by the parents. Children who are malnourished do not grow well, they tend to be smaller and their overall height is lower, whereas well fed children tend to grow bigger and stronger than their parents. Some special problem like rickets, poor teeth formation, a type of blindness can result from poor feeding. Read more here
More so good health is related to good physical development. Sickness slows down growth and if the sickness last for a long period, the overall size and weight of the child is affected. A good healthy environment is conducive to growth, available clean drinking water, good ventilation and clean surroundings help to prevent the child from falling ill and of course infectious disease comes from dirty water and surroundings,
Exercise helps the body to grow and function well, when the child exercises, blood flows well and supply oxygen and nutrients to all part of body, it also helps in sending out waste products through respiration. Growth and development occur where there are abundant supply of these variables and as such parent should thrive at all cost to responds to these challenges for the good of the newborn.
The other important aspect that is pertinent in the newborn is language development. Language is a collection of symbols which each distinct group of human being has put together for the purpose of communication among its members (Inyang-Abia 2001). Although other animals can communicate, only human beings can use language for communication.Each language have four components and the child develops at different rates on each of them.
The components are, sound, grammar, meaning and function.The sound system consists of sound and combination of sound allowed in a particular language. How do infants accomplish the feat of learning to speak which is so important for the rest of their cognitive development? This is through verbal interaction with the parents, infant responds to human stimuli, "A baby.....imitate the mother's voice.
Parents of varied cultural backgrounds speaks to their babies using the same rhythmic speaking style that some call "parentese". This is as the parents speaks in a lovely way the heart rate of the baby leaps for joy and increases the listening mechanism for understanding. This is believe to assist in hastening the connection between words and the object they denotes.
To fulfill the weighty need and want of newborn, parents have to be awake to their responsibilities by making adequate preparation for the babies arrival. Some working husbands agreed to let their wives primarily in the house to carter for newborns, rather than let the care of the baby to a baby sitter. The nurturing of a baby should be the sole responsibility of the parents such that those natural bonds will be maintained. Parenting can be a joyful work, full of excitement, still it is a challenging, demanding job and parents must thrive to do the best for their children for a fruitful future.
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