Bursary and year received: Newborn Behavioural Observations – 2022

Profession: Paediatric nurse and lecturer

City/region: Trà Vinh

MY was awarded one of our Reach Beyond bursaries in 2022 and completed her NBO training and certification in 2023. Through an online interview, MY has kindly shared some reflections with us. MY feels that since the NBO training she has a greater understanding of a baby’s cues, such as how to interpret their colour and activity as well as other more obvious signals.  She makes use of this learning to help parents understand how their baby is communicating.  MY describes how some parents are excited to learn that their baby can hear and track items visually when they are still so young, a skill they thought only developed later.

“Some parents think the baby just hears when over one month. When I share with them the baby can also look and see a red ball, when I share they are really interested as they thought this was not developed yet…”

Although experienced in her role, the training has increased MY’s confidence in looking after the babies in her care and in supporting the crucial very early relationship with their parents.

MY has many exciting plans for the future and has just been accepted to do a PhD. Her project will research breastfeeding and parental awareness of infant behaviour including indications of hunger and signs of fullness and would like to exploring the possibility of incorporating the NBO into future projects.  MY would also love to one day be sufficiently experienced to be an NBO trainer, so that she can make NBO training accessible to all her colleagues.  Currently for some there is a language barrier.   We are looking forward to future updates from MY on her plans!