Final Note

The baby is born and every day something new and exciting happens. Not just seemingly major events, like rolling over or taking that first brave step, but other tiny things that may not seem like milestones. Smiling, cooing, even crawling out of the crib – these seemingly random acts all fall into a timeline that marries up with the stages of your child’s development. There are three broad stages of development: early childhood, middle childhood, and adolescence. They are defined by the primary tasks of development in each stage. When child development experts talk about the study of development, they have in mind some fundamental theories of development that were codified by brilliant clinicians and scientists well before we had the technology to correlate them to brain development. Roughly speaking, these theories can be categorized as emotional, cognitive and moral. Erik Erikson developed the most common theories of emotional development. Jean Piaget developed the most common theories of cognitive development. And, Lawrence Kohlberg developed the dominant theories of moral development. Pre-Pregnancy and prenatal care can help prevent complications and inform women about important steps they can take to protect their infant and ensure a healthy pregnancy. With regular prenatal care women can: Reduce the risk of pregnancy complications. During each prenatal stage, environmental factors affect the development of the fetus. The developing fetus is completely dependent on the mother for life, and it is important that the mother receives prenatal care, which is medical care during pregnancy that monitors the health of both the mother and the fetus. The social-emotional development begins with parental bonding to the child. This bonding allows the mother to respond to the child’s needs timely and soothe their newborn.