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We are a long way from the days when our daughter could only use crying to get her point across (even though it still feels like yesterday sometimes). Now that she is a growing toddler she has developed some pretty good communication skills. Being a stay at home mom I have been able to spend a lot of time communicating with her and teaching her how to communicate with us. We read books all the time, it is her favorite thing to do, we talk and sing, and I’ve taught her some sign language. I think that has helped her develop some pretty good communication skills so far.
I consider myself lucky to have a toddler that can get her point across pretty efficiently (most of the time!). It is so much easier to know, or at least have a pretty good idea of what she is asking for. Our daughter uses a combination of sign language (both ASL and made up), gestures, and actual words to communicate with us. Since I am with her all the time I usually understand her most of the time, but even my husband who only gets to see her for a couple of hours after work and on the weekends can get the point a lot of the time.
I began teaching her sign language when she was about 9 months old. She picked it up pretty quickly. She knows the ASL signs for eat, drink and more, plus signs we made up for up, kitty (she made this one up) and all done. I’m currently working on teaching her please, thank you, and snack. The first sign she picked up on was the made up sign for UP. I had used that pretty much from birth and she started using it by the time she was 6 months old. She picked up on the others pretty quickly once I started introducing them. It only took her a day to learn the signs for drink and more, I was very impressed!
She very quickly noticed that she could get her point across using gestures as well. She has the standard gestures of pointing and waving, but has also developed a few of her own. Some of the gestures she uses are putting her hand to her ear to mean phone, snapping her fingers and rotating her hands to mean music, waving her hand in front of her face to mean stinky and moving her arms in and out to the side to mean swimming.
As her vocabulary is growing she has introduced words as well. For her age she has a pretty good vocabulary of about 25 words, including; light, duck, dinner, lunch, breakfast, cat, kitty, hat, hot, dog, snack, bath, bread, milk, blanket, bar (for granola bar), that, dada, mama, hi and tree. Since her verbal communication skills are just developing she often uses sounds or actual words in conjunction with gestures and signs to get her point across. For example she will tap her head and say hat, hold her hand out and say hot, or use her kitty sign while saying cat.
Gone are the days of trying to guess what each cry means. Most of the time she gets her point across in one try, if not we can usually guess in one or two tries. I know that now that her verbal communications skills have really started to develop she will be adding more and more words all the time and probably dropping some of her signs and gestures as she replaces them with the actual words. I wonder what her first sentence will be?
What forms of communication does your toddler use to get their point across?
Depression during pregnancy, or antepartum depression, affects 10-20% of women, and 25-50% of these women will suffer from major depression. Antepartum depression, just like clinical depression, is a mood disorder. It affects not only your mood and thoughts but your physical body as well. Because of all the hormone changes during pregnancy and the mood swings women often experience it isn’t uncommon for depression to go unnoticed or undiagnosed. Many women, their partners, and their health care providers may just attribute the mood changes to pregnancy hormones and leave it at that. Depression during pregnancy can cause harm to both mother and baby so it should not be left untreated. If you think you might be suffering from depression during your pregnancy be sure to talk to your health care provider.
So what are the signs of depression? You may have depression if you experience some of the following for more than 2 weeks.
- Persistent sadness
- Loss of concentration
- Sleeping too much or too little
- Loss of interest in normally enjoyable activities
- Recurring thoughts of death, suicide or hopelessness
- Anxiety
- Feelings of guilty or worthlessness
- Changes in your appetite
- Loss of energy
Women with a personal or family history of depression are at greater risk of suffering from depression during pregnancy, however, there are other risk factors as well, including:
- Problems in your relationship with your spouse or partner
- You had infertility treatments to conceive the pregnancy
- Prior loss of pregnancy
- Stressful life events
- Pregnancy complications
- A history of trauma or abuse
As stated earlier, depression during pregnancy can cause harm to both the mother and the baby if left untreated. There are many treatment options available to women. Talk to your health care provider about your options and choose a treatment plan that works best for you. Some of your treatment options include:
- Private psychotherapy
- Support groups
- Medication
There are medications that have been used during pregnancy with no adverse effects. Talk to your doctor about what, if any medications are right for you. You may want to try talk therapy first, or your depression may be severe enough to warrant immediately going on anti-depressants. It is a good idea to involve the health care provider who is treating during your pregnancy, your therapist, and even your child’s future pediatrician in your care. By involving all parties you can ensure the best treatment for you with the best outcome for both you and your baby.
The most important thing is to talk to someone about your symptoms and how you are feeling. If you don’t feel comfortable talking to your doctor find someone who you trust and who can help you. The longer your depression goes untreated the bigger the risk to you and your baby.
Sources and other helpful websites:
Last week a US federal special court ruled that there was no scientific evidence to support a link between the MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) vaccine and autism. In their ruling the court stated “it was abundantly clear that petitioners’ theories of causation were speculative and unpersuasive” and went on to say “the weight of scientific research and authority was simply more persuasive on nearly every point in contention.” The ruling was well received and applauded by the scientific and health communities. The families of those making claims to the VICP (vaccine injury compensation program) were disappointed with the ruling and continue to stand behind their claims that the MMR vaccine caused their children’s autism.
So will this ruling be the end of the debate? Likely, it will not mean the end of the debate. When your child is diagnosed with autism it is devastating and you want to know why it happened to your child. Since autism diagnoses often happen around the same time as the MMR vaccine is administered it becomes an easy scapegoat. More research needs to be conducted into autism, what causes it, etc so these parents can finally get some answers. I also think the public health and pediatric medicine communities need to do a better job of communicating with the public about both autism and vaccines to help put some of the fear and some of the debate to rest.
Why is there such a debate about vaccines? Parents want to protect their children at all costs and if they believe something could harm their child they are going to steer clear, that includes vaccines. Unfortunately, I think parents have become the victims of scientists, doctors and media professionals wanting to make a name for themselves. Many of the claims about the lack of safety of vaccines are not backed by peer-reviewed studies but rather by highly-emotional personal anecdotes, pseudo-science and misinformation. All of this combines to make for a high level of fear among parents of small children and a mass “jumping on the anti-vaccine bandwagon” so to speak. It is sometime easier to just say no than to try to weed through all the information out there to find what is true and accurate.
It has been a long time since we have seen the ill-effects of many of the diseases we are vaccinating our children against. Being so far removed from the diseases makes it hard for many parents to see why the vaccines are worth the risks. It is more important than ever for parents to do their research, especially when it comes to educating ourselves about the diseases these vaccines prevent. I am pro-vaccine and fully vaccinate my daughter. I have done the research regarding the risks involved with the vaccines as well as the risks of the diseases themselves and concluded that vaccinating my daughter is the right thing to do.
Parents need to know the facts (scientifically backed facts) about the vaccines and the diseases they protect against in order to make informed decisions. Below I have provided links to the information sheets for the common childhood vaccines, as provided by the National Network for Immunization Information.
- DTaP – diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis
- Hepatitis A
- Hepatitis B
- Hib – Haemophilus influenzae type b
- Influenza
- Meningococcal
- MMR – measles, mumps and rubella
- Polio
- Pneumococcal Conjugate
- Varicella – chicken pox
It can be hard sometimes to filter through the information available on the internet regarding vaccinations. There is a lot of junk science and misinformation circulating out there. Here are a few sites that I found helpful in my own research. I also found it helpful to speak with my daughter’s pediatrician, whose opinion and expertise I value and trust.
- National Network for Immunization Information
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
- World Health Organization – Initiative for Vaccine Research
- National Vaccine Information Center
Many parents think it is safe to “opt-out” of vaccines for their children because the diseases they are protecting against have been either eradicated, eliminated or dramatically reduced. However, that will only remain the case if people continue to get vaccinated. Also, most of these diseases are still prevalent in other parts of the world, so you could be only a plane ride away from contracting them. Community-immunity is only effective if most of the community is vaccinated. You are not just putting your own children at risk you are also putting children who are too young for the vaccines or too sick to be vaccinated at risk.
On a personal note about community immunity. When I was a child I had Pertussis (whooping cough). It was during the 1980′s when there were outbreaks in many parts of the western world due to misinformation circulating about the vaccine’s safety and parents were opting out of the vaccine for their children. I had been vaccinated, however, contracted the disease anyway because unfortunately no vaccine is 100% effective. Let me tell you it was no picnic. I can still vividly remember how much it hurt to cough all the time, my chest and throat throbbed. My head hurt constantly for over a month because I coughed all the time.
The bottom line is I believe every parent has the right to decide what is best for their children. However, those decisions need to be based on accurate information and scientific facts. If after doing all the research you still decide that it is best not to vaccinate your child, well that is your choice.
Vaccines are safe and the risks associated with the diseases they protect us against far outweigh the risks associated with the vaccines themselves.
Every parent of a preemie or special needs baby understands the full impact that March of Dimes has on the lives of our tiniest, most helpless babies. The the goal of March of Dimes is to one day live in a world where every baby is born healthy and every baby has a fighting chance at life.
One of the blogs I really enjoy reading, The Spohrs Are Multiplying, is all about the life of a family who were on the receiving end of the good things that come out of the work of March of Dimes. Their daughter was born 3 months early and spent a lot of time in the NICU fighting for her life. She is a beautiful, happy, healthy 15 month old now. Her and her mother are participating in this years March for Babies to help give back to an organization that has done so much for them and so many others.
So please stop by The Spohrs are Multiplying and read a little bit about Maddie’s story and if you can afford it, make a donation and become part of their goal to raise $2000. Trust me you’ll feel great knowing you are helping make a difference in the lives of other babies like Maddie.
A new research study conducted by the University of Chicago found that toddlers who point, wave bye-bye and use other gestures as part of the way the communicate tend to have stronger and more varied language when entering kindergarten.
To conduct their study the researchers visited the homes of 50 low and high-income families with 14 month olds and watched the interaction between parents and children for 90 minutes; they then visited with them again when they were 4 years old and about to enter kindergarten. The researchers found that those children who used a lot of gestures as toddlers and had parents who used gestures when communicating with them had better language development at age 4 than those children who used fewer gestures as toddlers.
According to the research the high-income parents tended to use more gestures when communicating with their children, used broader language, and generally talked more with their toddlers than the lower-income parents. As toddlers the higher-income children used more gestures such pointing and waving, and applied more meanings to those gestures. On average the toddlers in the higher-income families applied about 25 meanings to their gestures compared with only 13 meanings applied by the lower-income families.
It is important to note that the parents were not using sign-language, they were simply using everyday gestures like pointing. Ultimately, the key is to talk with your child as much as possible, read to them, and include gestures such as pointing to help them build strong language skills that will carry them through life.
For more information on the study visit the University of Chicago’s website.