Prenatal through Infancy
Every baby born into the world is a finer one than the last. - Charles Dickens
A baby is a full time job for three adults. Nobody tells you that when you’re pregnant, or you’d probably jump off a bridge. Nobody tells you how all-consuming it is to be a mother—how reading goes out the window and thinking too. - Erica Jong
Having a baby is like taking your lower lip and forcing it over your head. - Carol Burnett
Prenatal Environment and Birth
For the most-part, it seems, my prenatal development was a simple, by-the-book, process. My mother says that I “was no problem, a very easy pregnancy”. She only complained on morning-sickness for the first 6-weeks of her pregnancy with me. I was my parent’s first child, and though they had possibly heard horror stories, they seemed to think that having a baby was pretty simple and easy. My mom had very little-than-normal discomfort and through her prenatal checkups, doctors encouraged her that all was well. During a regular checkup with her doctor in the second trimester, she had the opportunity to experience an ultrasound test. The echo from the sound waves revealed tiny fingers and toes, and the shape of my profile. My heartbeat was strong, and all was developing well.
Throughout her pregnancy, my mom changed very little about her diet, though she decided to increase her intake of vitamin-rich foods and take prenatal vitamins. As a part of her new diet, she began drinking a couple of glasses of milk a day; which became a habit that she has yet to break. Though my parents never smoked, several close family members did. During her pregnancy, my mom avoided being near them anytime they smelled of fresh smoke. Knowing my parents as I do now, I expect that they shared the tendency to choose to always err on the side of caution and avoid all teratogens possible throughout her pregnancy. They are protective, caring, and very thoughtful and intentional in everything that they do. Along with avoiding unhealthy environments, my parents sought to prepare as best as possible for the event of childbirth. They had decided they wanted to experience a natural childbirth, as coined by English obstetrician, Grantley Dick-Read. The emphasis in this form is to educate and train the expectant mother to mentally and physically prepare for childbirth. The heavily involved themselves in learning the Lamaze techniques at breathing and relaxation. The practice was developed in the 1940s by French obstetrician, Dr. Fernand Lamaze, as an alternative to the use of medical intervention during labor. Modern Lamaze childbirth classes teach expectant mothers breathing techniques and often other ways to work with the labor process to reduce the pain often associated with childbirth, such as hot and cold packs, changing positions, and the use of a "birthing ball" to remain in an upright position.
My parents had certain indications that I may be planning to arrive early. They had bags packed near the door and the car full of gas for the next few weeks, awaiting the necessary trip to the hospital. Finally, only 3 days before my official due-date, my parents left their Lamaze class early to check into the maternity wing of the Johnson county hospital. After about three hours, she entered the first stage of childbirth with regular contractions, and only a couple of hours later, just before midnight on March 8th, I was born. My mom used no drugs, except for a local anesthetic for her episiotomy. My mom remembers the nurses seeming to be impressed with how my parents had preformed the breathing exercises and how well they communicated. It had been a very smooth birthing process, especially for two 23-year-old, first-time parents. Immediately after any birth, a newborn is weighed and measured, and tested for any signs of developmental problems. I was brought into the world with pretty average physical stats: weighing 7lbs 6oz, I was 20 inches in length, and my head was 14 inches around. The Apgar Scale is a widely used test to assess a newborns health only minutes after birth. The Apgar score was devised in the early 1950s by Dr. Virginia Apgar, and is calculated (1 low - 10 high) based on: Appearance (based on skin color), Pulse (heartrate), Grimace (based on reflexes), Activity (based on muyscle tone and active movement), Respiration. Even minutes after birth I was starving for attention and ready to impress the world, and so, I duly scored a 10!
Socioemotional Development
Humans are born as emotional beings, though both environment and heredity play a part in the development of a child’s emotions and personality. Building on the work of Charles Darwin and more modern psychologists, facial expressions of humans are innate, not learned. Emotions are linked with the human nervous system and respond to impulses in the emotional brain systems. Both, the physical and emotional environments that surrounded me played roles in my neurobiological regulation of my emotions.
Though I had a bit of neonatal physiological jaundice (a yellowing of the skin and other tissues of a newborn), my parents were allowed to take me home. Exposing infants to high levels of colored light can break-down the high levels of bilirubin that cause yellow-tinted skin pigmentation. My parents moved my crib under a window to get sunlight for a few days to simulate the hospitals blue and white light treatments.
Though I had many cousins, I was the first boy born to my family of my generation. For this reason (and due to my reasonable cuteness and disposition), I was never lacking for attention. I was constantly held, rocked, spoken to, and played with, by grandparents, aunts and uncles, and my older cousins. My mom recalls that I slept well for the first few days home, but soon turned to crying all evening and into the night. My parents responded by giving me car rides, which seemed to help some, and by rocking me all evening. My dad even built rockers for my baby-bed; and at night, he would lie in the floor with a string tied from the bed to his toe, and rock me by bobbing his foot as he read or tried to rest.
My mom had been given 6-weeks off of work for maternity leave, and she dreaded the thought of returning to work so soon. My parents decided that they could manage with her working only part-time, and so she arranged her new afternoon shift with her boss. In the early mornings before she went to work, my mom would hold me and rock me, helping to create a bonding connection between us. From the time I was six-months-old and forward, she would spend mornings in the rocking chair holding me close and watching Mr. Rogers, Sesame Street, and Reading Rainbow on television (I owe my TV-watching addiction to my mom). At first, family members would take me at noon and look after me until my parents got off of work. Soon, a family friend, who I came to know as “Nonny”, took over these mornings with me. Nonny did not have any children of her own, and so she would spoil me with constant attention; so it is possible that my mom experienced more separation anxiety than I did. In the evenings, my parents would sing songs with me, and my dad would play with puzzles and toys with me.
I quickly became accustomed to all of the attention I was receiving, and in-turn became a crier in every instance that I was left alone. Since my grandmother insisted that my crying meant hunger, food became the next natural response to my fussiness. I was nursed until eight-weeks, and then transitioned to a formula with iron, and around six to eight-weeks, I began eating soft cereals. By the time I was four-months-old, I weighed 16-pounds. By six-months, I had easily reached 20-pounds. Though in early childhood I evened-out into the thin form that I still show, I remain to this day, a very heavy eater. (In considering my early eating habits, I question if I was born a heavy eater, or if I was trained to be this way.) I was never shy about sharing my likes and dislikes. By 17-months, I began revealing my personality. I was outgoing and would like to show off and invent, and by two-years-old, I became stubborn and independent.
Motor Development
Motor development is the process of learning to control one’s natural reflexes. Esther Thelen proposed a dynamic system theory that assumes that the developments of motor skills are a combination of perceiving and acting. This would infer that all behavior is in response certain environmental and internal pressures. For example, as a baby feels the need to move, and perceives the muscle ability to use their arms and legs to crawl, they begin to fine-tune muscle control to pull themselves forward or backward.
Gross motor skills involve larger-muscle activities, such as standard movement and turning over. According to the chronicles of my baby-book, I first held my head up unsupported at nine-days-old, turned over at seven-weeks, and could sit without support at around five-months. I started pushing backwards first, at around four-months, and then began crawling forwards at five-months. By 6 ½-months, I could pull-up and stand alone, and by around ten-months, I had begun walking. I’m sure with all of the attention I had been receiving from family and friends, I had been given a lot of help and had much practice in learning to control posture and balance in locomotion.
Fine motor skills more finely-tuned movements, involving dexterity. Infants have hardly any control over fine motor skills at birth, but like gross motor skills, they can develop quickly based on environment and desire. As a baby wants or needs something, it will attempt to grab at it. As they discover their hands and feet, and begin to coordinate their fine movement, they learn to grasp and hold onto objects. My parents say that I was able to hold, and drink from a cup at seven-months-old, and by eleven-months, I could (somewhat) spoon-feed myself. Researchers have concluded that while these types of actions begin with crude movements, the development of reaching and grasping does become more defined over the first two-years of life as muscles become more coordinated.
Cognitive Development
As a child develops his/her physical abilities, so does a child develop their mental abilities. Jean Piaget’s developmental theory for infants and children is based on adaptations they need to make to schemes in order to fit into and function within their environment. In order to understand Piaget’s theories on learning, the term scheme needs to be understood as a basic set of actions or mental representations that organize knowledge. As the child interacts with their environment and acquires more experiences these schemes are modified to make sense, or used to make sense of the new experience. While older children begin to have more complex schemes that include reasoning and planning, a baby’s schemes are characterized by very simple actions. I guess this is why most parents celebrate each simple new action as a major discovery. I discovered that I had control of my hands and feet at 3-months, and I was soon grabbing and moving. By five-months I learned that I had control of my voice, and I began using it intentionally to gain attention and express myself. As I entered this sensorimotor world, I began to understand my environment by sensory experiences combined with physical activities. Piaget divided the sensorimotor stage into substages that show the progressive development of learning. Concordant with these substages, my grasping at air became grabbing objects placed in front on me; and as my mind and body became more coordinated, I began to have interest in the discovery of objects.
Soon, I had been conditioned to interact with things and people. At 13-months-old, I could imitate movements and noises that my parents displayed for me, and at 15-months I spoke my first word “dada”. As I began to understand the phonology and morphology of words, I began to make simple sentences, such as “there is” (pointing to something). Around 21-months-old, I was able to involve syntax into my simple language structure, forming sentences such as “I dood it!” Finally around my second Christmas, I displayed some understanding of semantics, as I referred to Christmas lights as “Claus Lights”.
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