Description

Dr. Melnyk shares how parents can ensure their premature baby has an emotionally healthy life.

Transcript

How Can Parents Ensue Their Premature Baby Has An Emotionally Healthy Life? I think the most important thing that I can tell a parent about how to help your child long term when they are born prematurely is not to overprotect that child and treat them really fragile. There are so many children who are born prematurely that end up having emotional and behavioral problems because of the way they are parented. Because they were born prematurely, again, a lot of times parents see those babies as fragile and as a result of that, they overprotect their children as they grow. They are afraid to discipline those children. They are afraid to limit set with those children and as a result their children end up not developing good self-emotional regulation. So we do see a lot of behavioral and emotional problems later on in children of per-terms, not because of the prematurity but because of the way they have been parented as fragile little children.