Supporting Parents of a Newborn Baby

This course was course number four of the Newborn Baby Care Specialisation from the University of Colorado, taught through the online platform Coursera. It was very interesting as it made very clear to keep an open mind on the various different types of relationships people can have and that every family is different.

Supporting Parents Newborn Colorado Uni

The syllabus says this about this course:

In this course, you will learn some core components in supporting parents of newborn babies. The Supporting Parents of Newborn Babies Course will teach you best practices for what to expect in the newborn exam and how to best support parents, partners, and other caregivers. This course examines postpartum depression, early bonding, and touch. This course introduces the important role of supportive partners and parents, in varied households, and what that support looks like. With every household as different, how can we effectively provide support as partners, fathers, co-parents, grandparents, and other guardians? As example, what are special considerations in adoption? We wrap the Newborn Baby Care four course specialisation with a guest appearance by a newborn baby, and a live Skills examination performed by course instructor, Dr. Mary Kohn. A newborn baby is an amazing beautiful life filled with hope. There is so much that goes into making sure that babies are born healthy, and so much more to think about after they are born. Whether you are in the health care field, or even a parent, this course is the perfect educational opportunity for you to keep newborn babies healthy in the days and weeks after they are born!

This course was really interesting to me as it taught me more about postpartum depression and how to recognise this. As a Doula and postpartum Doula this is something that I find really important to be able to recognise and help a mother through, so that she comes out feeling good again. It also taught me that families are very different these days. There can be two mothers, two fathers, some people are single parents, there are co-parents, there is adoption. I did not learn about re-lactating for a mother who is adopting in this course, but I have learned about that already, so this was quite a lovely addition to my knowledge. It basically glued many of the things I have learned before neatly together.