It was my privilege and honor to be invited to bring HUG Your Baby to the 3rd anniversary celebration of AIMA Maternity Hospital in Hangzhou, China. Vivien Li was my hostess and translator as we traveled from Hangzhou to Wenzhou and Taizhou to make presentations to professionals and parents at three maternity hospitals.
Tours
of the three hospitals were so interesting. Parents take birth classes and get prenatal, birth, postpartum, and
breastfeeding care at the maternity hospitals. The nurses serve as doulas and are trained in Brazelton’s sleep/wake states
and how to calm a fussy baby so they can educate parents as they care for them. Parents may stay in the postpartum care
center for a week or two and receive help with breastfeeding and parenting
questions. After birth in the hospital and discharge from the hospital, babies can enjoy the baby spa, where they get
a swim in the tub followed by infant massage.
Support
from family and friends is huge in these three Chinese cities. New parents rarely suffer from depression as
their needs are met, allowing them to be present with their newborns.
Professionals
– nurses, lactation consultants, and physicians – attended a full day of HUG Your Baby training in Hangzhou. At times we have mothers with their newborns attend the
HUG classes for professionals as a way to demonstrate a baby’s behavior and use
of the HUG Strategies.
However, since no mothers were available for this particular class,
my life-like baby doll, Audree, was used to demonstrate HUG techniques forcalming a fussy baby and showing parents the amazing talents of the
newborn. Parents later came to a special
parent session, where their babies demonstrated various newborn Zones, feeding cues,
engagement/disengagement cues, and how well they recognized and responded totheir own parents’ voices (compared to mine).
Enthusiasm
for HUG Your Baby information warmed my heart, and Chinese travel and hospitality warmed
my soul.
Click here to see professional evaluations of HUG Your baby workshops.