October is Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) Awareness Month
By: Carla Pister, PT
With the start of the Back-To- Sleep Program in 1994, the incidence of SIDS has decreased by more than 40%. As a pediatric physical therapist, I have found that since babies are spending even less time on their tummies, the incidence of torticollis/plagiocephaly/brachycephaly and developmental delays has more than doubled in my private practice.
In my course, Evidence-Based Strategies for Infant Positioning & Handling/Using Tummy Time to Influence Motor, Vision and Language Development, there is a strong focus on the importance of awake and elevated tummy time to set babies up for success with tummy time. I also discuss the negative impact that less awake tummy time has on babies with their future gross motor, fine motor, oral motor, visual motor and perceptual skills.
No matter what your discipline or level of experience, in taking my course, you will learn strategies to use in your assessment and treatments that will positively impact your patients’ future development by increasing their tolerance for tummy time.
Carla Pister, PT is a pediatric physical therapist with over 30 years of experience in pediatric physical therapy. She has both her Pediatric NDT and Advanced Baby NDT Certifi cations and received her Bachelors of Science in Physical Therapy from Marquette University. Ms. Pisterdeveloped and ran an outpatient pediatric clinic for over 25 years and currently has her own private practice seeing pediatric patients in their homes. She has a strong passion for vision and its impact on development. Carla has been studying the impact that tummy time and early midline eye convergence vision exercises can have on development alongside a pediatric ophthalmologist and optometrist. She has spent the past 15years training first, second and third year family practice residents on the importance of tummy time and how best to encourage families to work with their baby on their tummy.