I am Dr. Manjiri Deshpande, a Certified Childbirth Educator (CAPPA, USA) from Gurgaon, India. I am an Ayurveda practitioner, focusing on helping patients have a holistic approach to staying healthy and managing their chronic diseases. Earlier in my career I worked as a residential medical officer in nursing homes, along with six years' experience in gynecology and OB. Completeing my certification as a certified childbirth educator from CAPPA, USA, introduced me to HUG Your Baby's online course (Part I). I was very surprised to see the amazing newborn language.
I now collaborate with a gynecologist to work with expectant first-time parents who are having tons of questions and misconceptions.
Most of my clients are first-time parents who are worried about labor and newborn care. During my clinical practice I realized that most parents, especially first-time parents, face lots of difficulties in understanding their newborn baby. At times it is very confusing for them to know what action to take. After completing the first HUG course and my CAPPA certification, I decided to finish the HUG program and introduce it in my childbirth education classes.
As I started to learn the HUG Your Baby course material, I discovered strategies for supporting a new family to better understand the newborn and to increase the trust and confidence of these parents. The HUG not only gives parents the best way to handle their baby; it also helps them clarify their role as partners. It was amazing to learn about newborn behaviour, and the sleep patterns and the crying patterns of babies. Crying is very disturbing and frustrating for parents. If parents can't discover the reason for the crying, then life can become very erratic for them, and this affects their relationship with both the baby and their partner. The concept of "SOSs" is a very helpful way to understand and explain a baby’s stress responses--and how to handle them effectively. When I introduced SOSs to my mums in the clinic, they were very surprised. Second-time mothers told me that they faced those problem with their first baby. Now they feel that they have a way to understand and calm their baby and help him/her to get back on track.
In the coming months I want to develop a centre where parents can have an opportunity to understand all the aspects of a baby’s behaviour, his/her growth patterns, and how to develop good sleeping and eating habits. Some of these habits can carry from the newborn period to the toddler, the kid, and finally, to the teenager. I hope that my HUG Your Baby centre this will be a one-stop destination for parents to solve their problems and to become successful in their desired style of parenthood.