Care needs of infants (children under 1 year old)

The non-disabled infant

An infant for the purposes of this text is taken to be a child aged less than one year old. Healthy infants require a great deal of attention in connection with their bodily functions. They must be fed, winded, changed and bathed frequently. In addition, if emotional development is to proceed normally, an infant must be handled, cuddled, talked to and played with regularly. Furthermore, during the times when the infant is sleeping, periodic checks are made to ensure that all is well.

The infant with disabilities

Because of the amount of care and supervision/watching over required by a healthy infant, the amount required by an infant with disabilities may not usually be much greater than that needed by a healthy child. The kind of attention given may differ however, for example, instead of being handled in an ordinary manner, the infant with disabilities may need more specific stimulation or formal passive movements of the limbs in the form of physiotherapy but the amount of care or supervision/watching-over may not be greater than that given to a healthy infant.

Disabilities posing very substantial needs

Infants with certain disabilities will require considerable amounts of stimulation, care or supervision in addition to the normal care routine. These disabilities include -:

• Infants with frequent loss of consciousness usually associated with severe fits secondary to birth asphyxia or rare forms of congenital metabolic disease.
• Infants with severe impairment of vision and/or hearing. (Unless there is reason to suspect that a baby may be born with hearing impairment and has been checked with special techniques, it is unlikely that hearing loss will be picked up until the child is several months old).
• Infants with severe multiple disabilities.
• Other categories of infants with disabilities may well require extra care such as infants with renal failure, cystic fibrosis, asthma, cerebral palsy and those survivors of extremely pre-term birth. See Prematurity in babies
• Infants with severe feeding problems, which are due to physical reasons such as oro-facial malformations (e.g. cleft palate) or cerebral palsy.
• Some infants with developmental delay/learning disabilities who require prolonged periods to take adequate amounts of each feed. Some children with Down syndrome may fall into this category.