What a busy (and snowy) day! 22 professionals from around North Carolina joined Gale Touger and me for an all-day HUG Your Baby training (Parts I and II). As trainers we are always humbled by both the range and depth of the professional experience we find sitting in any class we teach. Childbirth educators, social workers, early childhood educators, doulas, nurses, lactation consultants, pediatricians, breastfeeding researchers, and international development specialists joined us yesterday. Their professional expertise is surpassed only by their commitment and passion to provide new moms and dads the support and education they want and need.
This class began with a review of the medical and child development literature used to development the HUG Your Baby program, and new research about what parents want and need. Attention was given to understanding the importance of a child's temperament, the impact of postpartum depression, and the critical role of fathers. Next we reviewed changes in an infant's crying, normal sleep patterns, and a baby's remarkable ability to interact with their parents. Jan was eager to share the newly completed "Roadmap to Breastfeeding Success" and to get feedback from this group of breastfeeding specialists. The breastfeeding community recognizes that helping parents understand a baby's behavior is key to promoting breastfeeding duration.
As usual, lots of interesting stories were heard, engaging videos were analyzed, and inspiring "Ah-HA" moments were shared. Time was spent on role-playing and reflecting on how to enhance communication with parents using The HUG Strategies. There was plenty of time to laugh at ourselves, to encourage one another, and to appreciate the awesome opportunity we have to impact the trajectory of parent-child relationships by making parents' first steps good steps.
And, the evaluations were thrilling! 100% of participants "Strongly Agree" that . . .
- "This program gave me helpful tools and strategies for teaching parents about newborn behavior."
- "I would recommend this course to colleagues."
