Post NICU - How Physiotherapy sessions work
- Jun 18, 2022
- 2 min read
Physiotherapy sessions aim to track your preemie baby's physical developmental milestones per her corrected age and take action where necessary.
Corrected age is the name of the game. Every 2 months of corrected age (at corrected 2 months, at corrected 4 months, at corrected 6 months and so on until corrected 1 year old), we visited our Physiotherapist for a 45 minute session.
She had a list of milestones for that specific age and she crossed them off after she spent some time with D. If she felt we needed to work on a specific exercise, she would give us some tips and games for us to make it fun and work on it. Depending on where D. stood for her age, she then gave some exercises to work on to achieve next milestone.
I thought these sessions were very helpful for me to support D.'s growth in an educated fashion. I read and make tons of research, yet I found it more comforting to work with an expert in the area.
Another advantage of working with a physiotherapist is that you stop comparing your baby with others. I am not sure if I wasn't a preemie mom, would I ever compare my baby with others. In this case though, not even once I compared D.'s development with other babies. I was confident primarily because 1- She was already being followed up by a team experts whom I trusted 2- As one of the doctors once said it would not be fair to D. as preemies take their time to catch up with their real age. (They are expected to catch up by age 2)
Physiotherapy sessions are a critical part of the process of post NICU period and it is wise to stick to them for a certain period of time until you and your physiotherapist feel there is no need to continue them any longer. By the end of D's corrected birthday, our physiotherapist and I decided we no longer required the sessions and that is how we closed this chapter of our lives.
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