Children bring joy to our lives and are blessings to our families and us. The comfort of every parent is to see their Children lead a normal and healthy life. We as young people found it necessary to educate pregnant women and parents with newborns on the ways of ensuring that their newborn children get the required neonatal care. We, therefore, came up with a teen program to help educate young mothers on postnatal development. Our teen program, "Help Your Baby Grow" is meant to help mothers understand the need for prenatal and postnatal health care and the necessities for a healthy development of their newborn infants in the first three months. As a psychologist with explicit knowledge on parenting and the bond between mother and child, I will help instil pregnant parents with knowledge on typical postnatal development during the first three months of life and the practices they can undertake to support their development.
Typical, Physical, psychosocial and cognitive development
Postnatal development is one major area that parents, pregnant teens and nurses need to look into to help ascertain that the infant is growing normally with treatment for those with birth complications. Postnatal development is divided into Neonatal development which ranges between birth and 1 month, infancy which ranges between 1 month and two years, Childhood between 2 years to 12 years, Puberty which ranges between 12 years to mid-teens and Young Adult, between late teens and early twenties (Allen, El-Beshti, & Guin, 2014) . Our focus will be on Neurological development.
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Neurological development entails both growth and restructuring of the central nervous system. The skeletal flexibility is one significant indicator of pure physical growth. The skeleton design around the spinal cord and the brain allows the continuity of the postnatal growth of the structures. The World Health Organization compared postnatal motor skill development to “motor milestones” which was released alongside growth charts (Ganchimeg, 2014) . This indicates that postnatal development is vital for the child’s health.
A number of factors causing abnormal development of a child can increase child mortality rate. In reference to Ganchimeg (2014) , in developed countries, 12 children die every year before turning five years old, many of whom die before turning one year. The children die during birth, some few days after birth, while other deaths are resulted by diarrhea, pneumonia, malaria, measles or malnutrition.
Parents should work towards developing a healthy fetus from the time they get pregnant. Eating healthy foods and increasing the intake of vegetables and fruits, eating foods with a lot of calcium, avoid smoking and seeking prenatal care (Bai, 2014) . This will help an increased probability of bearing a healthy child. A smoking parent endangers the life of the fetus since the smoke inhaled also reaches the child. Consequently, the child might develop birth complications which might affect him or her throughout their lives. Moreover, malnutrition can lead one to bear a baby with disabilities. Consumption of healthy foods is therefore vital for the mother. Also, visiting prenatal clinics is crucial for the safety of both the parent and the child.
Educational needs of teen parents for a new born
Healthy child development may be interrupted by early environmental growth. Children have to, therefore, cope with the consequences of the environmental change. Postnatal ill-effects sometimes arise from the different developmental pathways. For instance, the disparity between postnatal ecological state and the development in early infancy requires the child to cope with the new environment. Due to the change in the environment; the mother is necessary to keep the infant warm to avoid cases of pneumonia in the initial months. Since the infant was warm in the womb, keeping him/her covered is vital. Having been fed through the umbilical cord, the sudden change to feeding through the mouth is a change that might affect the baby and cause stomach upsets.
An infant can also respond to an unbalanced diet together with other adverse influences resulted from changing their developmental and growth routes. Infants who are born predominantly small face health disadvantages in infancy and later in life. The developmental trail might affect human disease incidences. In reference to Ganchimeg et al. (2014) , birth weight is inversely related to the risk of attack by hypertension, diabetes type 2 and heart disease. The relationship which exists between impaired infant development and fast growth in childhood may be responsible for the high risk of attack by diseases.
The baby's father can play a useful role in the baby's development. A father's interaction with their children in their early months of life impacts positively on the baby's cognitive development. Research by Ganchimeg et al. (2014) shows that fathers who engage actively in the development of their children in the initial months performed better in cognitive tests. Fathers can also help the mother of their children feel loved and cared for at the time by offering emotional satisfaction and support.
Best practices young parents can incorporate into neonatal caregiving
Newborn care practices are culturally and socially influenced. Among us are pregnant teen and teen parents. Being young in parenting, there is much to learn about neurological development. Caring for a newborn requires devotion, commitment, and willingness. It is crucial to keep yourself and the baby healthy. Eating well, getting enough sleep and exercise will help you as a parent looks after your baby far much better. Eating nutrient-rich food will assist in the manufacture of plenty and healthy milk for the development of the baby.
Being a common trend among teens in the recent past, drinking, smoking and doing drugs are not healthy for both the baby and the teen parent. Those parents taking drugs should visit a counselor and work towards rehabilitation to ensure that they keep the baby and themselves healthy.
Teen parents who might be experiencing stress or depression should work towards seeking professional help since stress can affect the parent, and in the long run affect the child due to lack of enough food intake. Being a parent, teens should now recognize the change of situations, from childhood to adulthood. They should, therefore, learn to accept and embrace their new roles and responsibilities.
Being young, teens might fail to understand the importance of postnatal care which is vital for the health and development of a child. During the postnatal care period, there are vaccines given to children, either as an injection or orally. These vaccines given to infants are very vital in preventing the children against diseases, and conditions such as polio. For this reason, every parent should take their children to clinics often. Also, postnatal care helps health specialists spot or diagnose a defect or condition a child might have early enough. If amends can be made to improve the child grow usually, it becomes easier to start treatment, therapy or perform surgery as soon as possible. For this reason, postnatal monitoring and development become vital.
Parenting, especially during the first three months requires extra caution and concentration. The child being delicate requires careful handling since their muscles and skeleton are not firm yet. This necessitates the parent to handle the baby with extra care. Teen parents should also learn to feed their infants while seated to ensure that they don't cover the child's breathing system with the breasts. Parents have lost their infants in such occurrences since the infant is yet to gain enough strength to strive for breath.
The neurological disorder is a disorder of the nervous system. Abnormalities in a child's spinal cord or brain can cause a child a disorder that might affect his/her entire life. For instance, the spinal cord deformity can lead a child to use specialized equipment for movements. Parents with children who have this challenge should ensure that they take their children for therapy and frequent checkups to ascertain that the child gets medical attention. Psychosocial development is also very crucial in the development of a child’s personality acquisition of skills and social attitudes. This development includes the development of trust that occurs from birth to one year. The parent needs to gain trust from the infant, such that the baby feels safe and secure with the parents.
Cognitive development is the development of the brain. The brain develops step by step with the help of both parents. The infant immediately starts to learn after birth. He can hear, and later see which helps them in brain development.
Concerns of teen parents, research-based answers, and local support resources
One primary concern amongst teen parents is on how to bath the infant for the first time as they find holding the infant while bathing him/her as a challenge. A close friend or relatives can help bath the child for and set an excellent example for the teen parent. Also, the temperature of the water used to bath the child is very crucial since too hot water is not adequate. Also, too cold water can lower the child's average temperature which is not advisable.
Parent teens also ask how they to cope without support from the father of their child. Being young and naive, most teens are still in school and are yet to secure a job. This becomes the main challenge especially if the father of the child is unwilling to stay. Most teens become depressed as a result of the responsibility of a child, with no job to sustain them. Their parents in most cases take them in and take care of them as long as they need support (Lehr et al. 2016). Teen parents should concentrate more n their infants, taking care of them and looking for a source of extra income to them forget about their situation. Also, visiting a counselor will help the teen parent with depression through it much easier.
Also, teen parents are concerned about soothing the baby when he/she cries uncontrollably. However, most children cry as a result of irritation, hunger or discomfort. Consequently, the child should be fed if it has not been breastfed for some time. If the baby is not hungry, then the teen parent should check whether the baby is wet which would cause him/her discomfort. If it is irritation, and the parent does not know why the baby is crying, visiting a health center will be the most appropriate option.
Local community organizations and online support groups have emerged to help teen parents and pregnant teens to raise their infants in a conducive and healthy environment. For instance, Generation Her is an online non-profit organization which was founded due to the lack of existing services for teen parents and young mothers. It aims at empowering teen mothers to become a healthy nurturing mother and to gain financial independence (Generation Her, 2006). They also offer workshops where they mentor relationships and promote healthy parenting through rewarding positive parenting practices.
References
Allen, K., El-Beshti, R., & Guin, A. (2014). An integrative Adlerian approach to creating a teen parenting program. The Journal of Individual Psychology , 70 (1), 6-20.
Bai, S., Zhang, Q., Liu, G., Wang, S., Yan, L., & Zhao, Y. (2016). Discussion about the influence of bath frequency on neonatal skin condition and body temperature. Chinese Journal of Practical Nursing , 32 (33), 2561-2564.
Ganchimeg, T., Ota, E., Morisaki, N., Laopaiboon, M., Lumbiganon, P., Zhang, J., ... & Vogel, J. P. (2014). Pregnancy and childbirth outcomes among adolescent mothers: a World Health Organization multicountry study. BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics & Gynaecology , 121 , 40-48.
Generation Her, (2006). Home. Retrieved from http://www.generationher.org/
Lehr, M., Wecksell, B., Nahum, L., Neuhaus, D., Teel, K. S., Linares, L. O., & Diaz, A. (2016). Parenting Stress, Child Characteristics, and Developmental Delay from Birth to Age Five in Teen Mother–Child Dyads. Journal of Child and Family Studies , 25 (3), 1035-1043.
