Baby Communication Week Day 714 - 21st June Soon after the birth of my first granddaughter Rosie, it became clear that Grandpa Gerry had a Read more
baby songs
Baby Communication Week Day 614 - 21st June Singing is one easy way to communicate and bond with your baby before birth, it doesn’t necessarily Read more
womb to world conference
Baby Communication Week Day 514 - 21st June My name is Liz Thompson and I am a Birthlight baby massage, and mother & baby yoga Read more
Baby Communication Week Day 514 - 21st June Thanks to Jay Ehrlich winning The Lady Allen of Hurtwood Award for her work as a Hospital Read more
parent-baby communication
Baby Communication Week Day 414 - 21st June Lockdown hit new mums hard. Wonderful Nurturing Baby Massage and Yoga teachers stepped in to fill the Read more
Baby Communication Awareness Week Day 314 - 20th June The adorable Crystal Faith and lovely mummy Yemi have known only pandemic life together. They have Read more
baby communication
Baby Communication Awareness Week Day 214 - 20th June 2021 'So what about now at the start of your newborn's life? Figuring out how she Read more
baby communication
Baby Communication Awareness Week Day 114 - 20th June 2021 After months of waiting, preparation and imagining, meeting a new baby unlocks an unexpected set Read more
Why Birthlight Yoga for the Menopause? Menopause is a key time of change for women. Whether this transition is experienced easily or with difficulty, women Read more
Mirror Learning Webinar With Hugo Lavalle, Acquarella, Italy. Co-hosted by STA and Birthlight How do babies pattern their movements in water long before they can Read more

 

 

 

 

Baby Communication Week Day 7

14 – 21st June

Soon after the birth of my first granddaughter Rosie, it became clear that Grandpa Gerry had a uniquely effective way of soothing her. Cradling her in his arms, he bounced left and right in small rhythmical steps, then forwards and back with occasional half-turns. He did not look at her, focusing on his rhythm and gradually slowing it down as he felt her settle. This practice seemed strangely familiar to me. Then it clicked! I had witnessed and learnt a similar rhythm from Amazonian indigenous people and observed it in Indonesia too. Grandpa Gerry is from Scotland and he was not aware of having learnt it from anyone else.

The Gerry Step

Sometimes, we need to rethink our ways of relating to new babies. And sometimes, dads excel at doing this (I do not mean throwing newborns in the air, that is misguided and dangerous…). When bathing their babies and comforting them, dads often communicate with different gestures and rhythms from mums. Babies respond to and love these differences, which enrich their experiences of being in the world.

The Gerry Step was just as enjoyed by our second granddaughter Alba. By then, dad was a pro too. Long live the Gerry Step and similar rhythms that are transmitted or rediscovered by dads as forms of body communication with babies in our world family.

Françoise Freedman

Birthlight Director

Dr Françoise Freedman is the Founder and Director of Birthlight. She is a pioneer, Senior Yoga Teacher, acclaimed writer and lecturer of Social Anthropology at the University of Cambridge. 

Brazelton UK is sponsoring Baby Communication Awareness Week, 14 – 21st June 2021. Baby Communication Week is a great way to put supporting Infant Mental Health into practice. It’s about understanding a baby’s experience of the world and how they communicate their preferences in order that we can give the best sensitive and responsive care.

baby songs

Baby Communication Week Day 6

14 – 21st June


Singing is one easy way to communicate and bond with your baby before birth, it doesn’t necessarily have to have words, you could just hum a melody to your baby in the womb when you feel happy and relaxed. Make sure you pick something that you won’t mind repeating a lot though! And remember you don’t need to be a ‘good’ singer -your baby will love your singing!

Back in 2006 at our Birthlight Conference in Cambridge, I remember that all those present were wowed by Colwyn Trevathen’s presentation about his research into mother baby interactions and one thing that stuck in my mind was the musicality of babies and their body wide response to interaction with the people around them. Colwyn showed us a film clip of a blind baby ‘conducting’ a familiar song being sung by his mother- a clip viewed and analysed by a professor of music, concluding that the baby was intuitively conducting the beat with one hand a third of a second ahead of the mother’s singing!

A study in Belfast showed that babies remembered the theme tune to Neighbours after birth if they had heard it regularly whilst in the womb.

Over the years I have had the experience, and many of my fellow Perinatal Yoga teachers have also shared this, of meeting the baby of a woman who has come to my prenatal class and the baby turning their head towards me when I have spoken to them- do they recognise my voice from all the times their mum came to class?! There’s a lot of research to suggest that this is the case.

So when pregnant with my daughter, I sang the same song every day in the shower to her …..

Kirsteen Ruffell

So, when pregnant with my daughter, I sang the same song every day in the shower to her and it certainly was her end of the day going to sleep lullaby, regularly requested for many years. From late pregnancy my partner thought he’d better have his own song too, he already talked to our baby in the womb, and then used his same song to soothe her to sleep after she was born. Later I remember sharing the song I sang on a perinatal training with Françoise. It was just after lunch and my daughter was settling into a feed but she opened her eyes and gave me a quizzical look as this was not the normal time of day for the song! 

In Baby Yoga classes I usually use the same song, melody or brahmari (humming) to signal the winding down to relaxation for the last part of the class. Over the weeks parents and babies become accustomed to this signalling a change in rhythm of the class and are generally able to settle more and more easily into a lovely relaxation together. Many parents report that they use this at home to initiate a family nap, or calm a baby when they’ve been in a traffic jam and I once admired a toddler calm herself with the relaxation song we used each week whilst her mum went to the loo. 

Lullaby’s are sung the world over but you don’t need to wait until your baby, grandchild, niece or nephew is born to sing to them and brush up on your lullabies. Toys that play songs have made the sound of baby songs reproduced by electronic devices part of our global culture. But when parents or family members themselves sing, babies show a different response and appreciation. This difference comes from the intent to communicate or ‘communicative intent’ that is transmitted when singing to a baby. Now we also know of the developmental benefits that come with the ancient practice of singing lullabies to babies through recent findings from neuroscience and experimental research.

We have collected lullabies from people around the world in a lullaby quilt and we’d love you to add some more. Visit our Lullaby Quilt

If your song repertoire feels a little rusty we have 2 songbooks Baby Yoga Songbook and Baby Swimming Songbook with CDs:

Baby Yoga Songbook

Buy a Baby Yoga Songbook (or pk of 10)

Baby Swimming Songbook

Buy a Baby Swimming Songbook (or pk of 10)

Kirsteen Ruffell

Birthlight Tutor

Kirsteen Ruffell is the Co-ordinator for Birthlight’s land-based training courses and is one of our experienced Perinatal and Baby Yoga Tutors. She is a registered Senior Yoga Teacher with Yoga Alliance Professionals, has been teaching yoga since 1998 and began tutoring in 2008.

Brazelton UK is sponsoring Baby Communication Awareness Week, 14 – 21st June 2021. Baby Communication Week is a great way to put supporting Infant Mental Health into practice. It’s about understanding a baby’s experience of the world and how they communicate their preferences in order that we can give the best sensitive and responsive care.

womb to world conference

Baby Communication Week Day 5

14 – 21st June

My name is Liz Thompson and I am a Birthlight baby massage, and mother & baby yoga instructor. A while back, I was asked to share my experience with you regarding our 2017-2018 yearlong audit at the Royal London Hospital, Barts Health NHS Trust.

The audit was set up to measure the effectiveness of baby massage and yoga classes in reducing patient and parent/carer stress.

Results from the audit were very positive, showing significant reductions in caregivers ’stress, feeling better able to cope and having enhanced confidence in caring for their children. When asked, parents/carers reported that they were ‘highly likely’ to recommend the service to others. After the audit finished, we continued running sessions using funding from Barts Charity. We happily ran weekly sessions from 2018 to March 2020, until CoOVID19 changed how all of us conduct our lives.

Lucy Wootton, Clinical Lead of the Royal London Hospital Play Department and visionary of the audit wanted to continue our classes. But how? No external workers were allowed into the hospital, strict infection prevention and control measures were put in place, the paediatric department was being adapted for adult Covid patients, new rules of good practice and safety had to be drawn up and implemented and no one knew how the pandemic would unfold. The only certainty in the uncertainty was that everyone needed support: patients, their families and staff alike.

online baby yoga classes

As with the audit, much problem solving, emails, discussions, meetings and trial sessions followed. Then, in July 2020, our first official virtual, online class began.
The service is run through ‘Star Leaf’; a virtual platform which protects patient confidentiality. and is supported by Barts Trust for virtual visits.

I am at home, online with my computer, doll and equipment in my room. A Play Team Specialist staff member connects with me at a set time, and I am then carried virtually around the wards and rooms via an iPad. This image always makes me smile. I used to think how strange it was for parents to see me in person with my doll, but it must be stranger still to see me via an iPad!

The virtual visits run like our “in person” classes. The principle is the same, individualised, patient led and lasting between 10-20 minutes to enable time to access as many patients as possible. As before, some virtual visits focus on positive touch with resting hands, songs or gentle massage. Other virtual visits incorporate yoga moves, breath and body awareness or relaxation exercises. Again, no two virtual visits are the same. All sessions are still patient led with parent participation being key. Permission is always asked from the patient beforehand and the patient is always thanked afterwards. If a patient is asleep, we offer the session to the parent. As per the audit, without exception, our virtual sessions have enabled the patient and parent to unite in a more relaxed and connected space.

Amazingly and thankfully, the virtual visits seem to work.

Here is what some parents have said: “It was a lovely session, we really appreciated it. Thank you… “ 

“This was a really enjoyable session for both parents and baby. Something new to learn, really beneficial and relaxing. The instructor is lovely!

Liz Thompson

Liz Thompson

Birthlight Instructor

My name is Liz Thompson and I am a Birthlight baby massage, and mother & baby yoga instructor. http://www.lizthompsonmassagetherapy.com

Baby Communication Week Day 5

14 – 21st June

Thanks to Jay Ehrlich winning The Lady Allen of Hurtwood Award for her work as a Hospital Play Specialist she was able to travel to the Brazelton Institute in New York City and further her research on supporting baby communication in the NICU environment. This is when she first met the Miracle of whom she writes.

Whilst working as a Hospital Play Specialist for a hospital in North London, I had the honour of creating a positive touch protocol in the Neonatal Unit along with the wonderful speech and language therapist.  Together we created a booklet for the parents to guide them during that scary time in a unit that was bright and noisy, 24 hours a day.  I received an award to use to research this and took myself to Boston where I met some of the team working in the Brazelton Institute.  From this and many visits to NICU’s in both Boston and New York, I gathered much information to return to the unit with new “bendy bumpers” (seen around the baby in the photo), to create a more womb-like environment to enable these babies to feel calm and safe whilst they grew.   These tiny babies, as young as 24 weeks, had no voice, and yet they could convey so much with their little body movements.  

Our booklet, entitled “My Own Language” was given to show the parents how much they could do to help their babies be calm and eventually able to self-sooth.   We also brought in the quiet time in our NICU where no routine testing was allowed and the babies incubators were covered with material to dampen the bright lights, where bins and doors had “soft closure” so that they did not make loud sounds that startled these little babies trying to sleep, to grow, to heal.   

   

Here I am at 26 weeks!

“I made some long-standing connections with these families and am so proud to share both these photos with permission, the beautiful young woman, (wonderfully and aptly named Miracle), once a baby born at only 26 weeks is now 21!” – Jay Ehrlich  

Here I am at 21!


The Sunshine of Parent-Baby Communication 

After 14 months of teaching antenatal yoga and baby yoga via Zoom, last week I held my first in-person baby yoga class in my neighbour’s garden.  For new mums to actually be with other mums is so important, and despite Zoom working well it cannot replace the feeling you receive in an in-person class.  I guess the sunshine always helps but the pure joy in both the mum and baby’s face speaks a thousand words.  

Non-verbal communication is our first window towards speech, a smile seen by a baby is mirrored but along with this oxytocin and endorphins can flow so that smile does so much for both mum and baby – the power of connection and communication.

jay

Jay Ehrlich

Birthlight Tutor for Special Babies

Jay is Senior Yoga For The Special Child Practitioner and Perinatal Yoga Specialist
http://www.yogababies.co.uk

parent-baby communication

Baby Communication Week Day 4

14 – 21st June

Lockdown hit new mums hard. Wonderful Nurturing Baby Massage and Yoga teachers stepped in to fill the void of live classes by serving their families well with livestream sessions. In virtual space we enjoyed the ease of the Zoom Casual while welcoming the family dog, adventurous siblings and the occasionally random appearance of a partially-clothed unexpected family member. Despite challenges, we could ‘support the parent-baby relationship by revealing the fascinating uniqueness of a baby’ (1). One teacher reported how she relished in overseeing the subtle game of conversational ‘serve and return’ when a mother responded to her baby’s communication. We can share these miraculous moments through practices developed thanks to the pioneering work of Dr T Berry Brazelton, in particular knowledge, skills and confidence gained from the Newborn Behavioural Observation tool (1).

When lockdown eased my youngest daughter and I celebrated by scootering leisurely through our local riverside gardens in the balmy sunshine. On a neatly laid blanket overseen by a motionless lakeside heron, a lovely new mum connecting with her young baby shouted out, “Marion!” It took a moment to recognise Terri and son Lennon. Connecting with our families online suffers from virtual distancing, a sensory dissonance unavoidable in the world of Zoom. I slammed on the brakes, because I can’t resist a baby! Terri immediately spoke of the beneficial effects during lockdown of our online BabyYogaMassage sessions and relayed to me how a story I’d told her had left its mark:-

A father posted about the joyous sound of a crying baby. Being neglected in an orphanage, his adopted baby daughter sadly had learned that no one listened to her cues, so naturally her communication cues withered, and she never even cried, that is until her new loving family made effective efforts to connect with her. As her adoptive parents diligently responded to her subtle cues, the magical seeds of connection unfurled.

As I watched Terri and Lennon connect in their cosy nest by the heat shimmering water, Lennon’s tongue poked out, not in a typical withdrawing cue, but his clever cluster of communicative cues demonstrated that he was talking to his mum. We sat smiling and actively listening with glee to Lennon’s riveting story, smartly told through his facial gestures, his physical movements, his soft babblings, and the polyvagal bonding spark of heartfelt connection.

baby commuication
The miracle of the mother-baby connection,
Alena responds and develops baby’s communication skills (4)

Dr T Berry Brazelton’s teachings are the cornerstone for our Birthlight parent-baby practices. For example, our integrative approach, which is still quite new, is built on the foundations of the Six States of Consciousness (2). This fundamental yet profound framework for recognising a baby’s state of being underpins the use of Still Positive Touch to connect, and subsequent responses to a baby’s communicative cues. Dr T Berry Brazelton’s lifelong work allows us to successfully draw on the optimum opportunities to use the rhythm of communication through dialogue, poems, nursery rhymes, song, sounds breathings and touch with movement. These techniques shared at the appropriate stage of baby’s development, allow us to discover a mutual rhythmic dance of connection.

Laura and Noah communicate through play.

‘The experience of movement combined with touch is probably

the richest stimulation we can offer babies from birth.’ (5)

Within this connective space a cocktail of hormones surge through the parent-baby pair to create a joyful symbiosis, and in the background, hidden in the myriad of baby’s neurons, this playful connection allows the release of neurotransmitters to produce gazillions of connections in baby’s brain and beyond.

In short, responding to your baby’s communication as a parent is the essence which allows your baby to grow their brain – physically, emotionally, cognitively and socially. 

All the theory in the world doesn’t matter a jot for a family in a pandemic, what matters is that communicative play is the best way for the pair to nurture their relationship, health and well-being by engaging in the delight of mutual connection. The work of Dr T Berry Brazelton has provided baby with a ‘voice’ to enable and enhance this wonderful connection.

Marion O’Connor

Birthlight Tutor

Marion became Birthlight’s first Baby Yoga tutor over 20 years ago, following a career as a Japanese stockbroker. Passionate about the subtle power of yoga, Read more

  1. https://www.brazelton.co.uk/courses/nbo/
  2. Brazelton, T., 1976. Neonatal Behavioural Assessment Scale. Philadelphia: Lippincott.
  3. Juhan, D., 2015. Job’s Body. New York: Barrytown/Station Hill Press, Inc. (1987: p35)
  4. BINBY – Birthlight Integrated Nurturing Baby Massage and Baby Yoga Training Manual 2020
  5. Barbira Freedman, F., 2010. Yoga for Mother and Baby. London: Cico.

Brazelton UK is sponsoring Baby Communication Awareness Week, 14 – 21st June 2021. Baby Communication Week is a great way to put supporting Infant Mental Health into practice. It’s about understanding a baby’s experience of the world and how they communicate their preferences in order that we can give the best sensitive and responsive care.

Baby Communication Awareness Week Day 3

14 – 20th June

The adorable Crystal Faith and lovely mummy Yemi have known only pandemic life together. They have used the time to joyfully grow their relationship. Newborn Crystal with mum Yemi attended Marion’s livestream BabyYogaMassage sessions where they enjoyed nurturing the strong bonds of a generous and loving group of families. From the very tiny babies in the early Nurturing Baby Massage sessions, the emphasis was on ‘Promoting Your Baby’s Communication’.


Crystal has graduated with honours: This clip demonstrates the wonderful communication skills Crystal shared after a great Zoom session singing in Baby Yoga.

Look out at 0.20 seconds, we’re convinced she says, ‘Baby Yoga!’

The pioneering Birthlight techniques, in Nurturing Baby Massage and Baby Yoga are shared around the UK in Sure-start, Family and Children’s Centres and through a wealth of Birthlight trained teachers offering accessible sessions in their communities.

https://www.facebook.com/pooloflifeyoga

Brazelton UK is sponsoring Baby Communication Awareness Week, 14 – 21st June 2021. Baby Communication Week is a great way to put supporting Infant Mental Health into practice. It’s about understanding a baby’s experience of the world and how they communicate their preferences in order that we can give the best sensitive and responsive care.

Marion O’Connor

Birthlight Tutor

Marion became Birthlight’s first Baby Yoga tutor over 20 years ago, following a career as a Japanese stockbroker. Passionate about the subtle power of yoga, Read more

baby communication

Baby Communication Awareness Week Day 2

14 – 20th June 2021

‘So what about now at the start of your newborn’s life? Figuring out how she shows you what she needs, and how you can respond effectively, is the first job, and it happens without the support of language. It’s a physical thing: you will be watching her expressions, her movements, listening to the kinds of sounds she makes to show she is hungry, hates her wet nappy, or indeed hates it more when you lay her down to change it….As you work these things out you will also be helping your baby pace her level of excitement…much of your time will be spent searching for the soothing strategies that meet her needs and your capacity to provide them..’ From Anna Witkowska’s’ Understanding Babies’ (Pinter&Martin, London 2021)

Emma, one of our experienced Baby Yoga, Baby Massage and Toddler Yoga tutors shared some quotes for todays Baby Communication Awareness Week theme. She added, “I think taking the time to really listen, to pause and to observe is so important in our interactions with others. Even more vital right now as we live in a time where much of our communication is taking place through technology”.

“The more silent we become, the more we hear” (Ram Dass)

And so this is also true of our interactions with babies. Babies have much to teach us about being present and enjoying the simplest of exchanges – a smile, a touch, a gesture – and we must tune into this and allow ourselves to learn from this very effective form of communication. We must let our babies know that we are listening to them and that we are willing to learn from them by quietly observing them and responding appropriately.

” Each little human organism is born a vibrating, pulsating symphony of different body rhythms and functions, which coordinate themselves through chemical and electrical messages…in the early months of life, the organism is establishing what the normal range of arousal is…this is a social process. A baby doesn’t do this by himself but coordinates his systems with those of the people around him.’

From Sue Gerhardt, Why Love Matters (Routledge, London 2004)

Emma Philip

Birthlight Tutor

Emma has practised yoga since 2006 and is a Birthlight Tutor for the Baby Nurture, Baby Yoga and Toddler Yoga training courses. 

baby communication

Baby Communication Awareness Week Day 1

14 – 20th June 2021

After months of waiting, preparation and imagining, meeting a new baby unlocks an unexpected set of physiological, sensory and behavioural responses that parents can never fully anticipate. Many of these responses are mammalian traits, such as checking and exploring the newborn all over. Others come from the baby, like the magical moment of greeting, when a newborn turns towards parents’ faces, usually the mother, but more and more often, the father too.

Even when the wondrous cocktail of birth hormones is modified by interventions, the first few hours can be an intense time of mutual discovery in which the baby is taking an active part. Newborn crawl, the programmed self-propelling of newborns to their mothers’ breasts by pushing surprisingly strongly with their tiny feet, includes pauses to check the contours of mothers’ faces. It’s not just about food… In fact, many newborns are first interested in feeling contact through touch and gaze. If there is a delay, the process is resumed later, when possible. Klaus and Klaus’ book ‘Your Amazing Newborn’ (1999) popularised newborns’ talents as innate communicators of love just as much of need. It reassured parents that love at first sight is rare, but that learning to observe and respond to their babies invariably creates love.

In cultures where souls are given great importance, the hours following birth require special closeness and protection to ensure babies’ safety. Amazonian indigenous mothers and fathers watch over their newborns together in their hammocks as they are fed and watched by relatives. This is to ensure that both parents and babies can live this transition as ‘real human beings’, attuning each other to the sensory and social cues that create a ‘newborn family’.

With the ritualised practice of ‘skin to skin’ contact after birth, particularly as babies are placed on fathers’ chests, newborns are given the comfort they need to reach out to those who hold them. But are we still missing important details? Light, timing,how to be quietly present? Are these missed even in home births? Alerting new parents to the primary importance of communication for their newborns in the first hours after birth is perhaps one of the main messages that an effective birth education needs to convey.

Françoise Freedman

Founder & Director of Birthlight

Françoise is a pioneer, Senior Yoga Teacher, acclaimed writer and lecturer of Social Anthropology at the University of Cambridge. 

Why Birthlight Yoga for the Menopause?

Menopause is a key time of change for women. Whether this transition is experienced easily or with difficulty, women welcome a chance to be in the company of other women who are going through or have been through the menopause. At Birthlight we pay huge importance to enabling a circle of women (even online) and the creation of a safe and supportive space to be heard and to share experiences and wisdom. Many women feel alone during this time, so this shared experience can make a massive difference to normalizing it, whilst recognizing that each woman must make her own unique journey.

This collective safety and intimacy is an ideal setting for the yoga practice to take place in a way that is truly supportive of each woman, to help her find the right balance of tone and release both physically, mentally and emotionally. The body and mind are going through natural but significant changes at menopause so the practice is adapted so that in turn each woman can discover or remember her own innate ability to adapt.

When women share how they feel, we as teachers can listen and offer the practices that respond to that woman’s or that group’s needs from week to week. This is what one of my students wrote to me after last week’s class which I am currently teaching online – she is going through the menopause and also has ME so energy is a big issue for her:

I just wanted to say a big thank you for your supportive session on Tuesday. I always enjoy and benefit from the Women’s group and yesterday there was such a lovely mix of strengthening and relaxing postures. I felt so much better afterwards and it is fantastic that I can fall straight into bed at the end! I really value the thought you put into these sessions whilst remaining flexible and sensitive to the group’s needs expressed at the start of the session. You are an inspiration!

avatar

Participant

Belinda Staplehurst’s Yoga Class

We can make a big difference to women’s lives during the menopause. Stress levels are often elevated so one of the keys to a smoother transition is to offer yoga that promotes vagal tone. At Birthlight we recognise the fundamental importance of relaxation and breathing, so this is always included in our classes – but our yoga is much more than just restorative yoga. Birthlight yoga is a rich tapestry of elements which weave together to support the menopausal body and mind. These include a wide range of strengthening and energising practices, internal toning for the core and pelvic floor, a chance to explore and be playful, to share paired and circle practices with the other women. We offer practices in progressions which enables women to go deeper at their own pace as well as to enable everyone to participate irrespective of their yoga experience or physical ability.

Come join me for our next Birthlight Yoga for the Menopause training so that you too can feel confident as a teacher in offering this rich treasure chest of practices to menopausal women. You can also join our training if you are wishing to explore this for yourself, or maybe you would like to do both!

Belinda Staplehurst

Belinda Staplehurst

Birthlight Tutor

Belinda has been a Hatha Yoga Teacher since 2000 and is a Senior Yoga Teacher with Yoga Alliance. She grew up in France but is based in the Midlands, UK. Belinda joined Birthlight in 2015 as a Perinatal Tutor after completing multiple Birthlight diplomas specializing in land practices. Belinda has developed her knowledge and practice further and now also tutors for Maternity Professionals and Well Woman Yoga. She is a tutor for Birthlight courses in France and regularly runs training in the UK, China and Russia.

Mirror Learning Webinar

With Hugo Lavalle, Acquarella, Italy. Co-hosted by STA and Birthlight

How do babies pattern their movements in water long before they can follow instructions or even stories that captivate their imagination? Babies grow their brains and their sense of self through movement in interactive, ideally loving, relationships with those who care for them. But how does this interaction work? why is water a great medium for parents and babies to “attune” to each other?

birthlight baby swimming

During the long lockdown, Hugo Lavalle has researched how the theory of mirror neurons, first developed by Italian researchers, illuminates early aquatic education. Although this theory has been contested by some neuroscientists, it continues to be immensely stimulating. Mirror neurons provide threads to better understand how and why, as baby swimming teachers, we need to move away from conditioning methods and support babies’ innate pathways to learning.

Originally trained as a Physical Education teacher in Argentina in the 1980s, Hugo became acquainted with the psychomotricity approach to early years aquatic education with Dra Patricia Cirigliano in Buenos Aires. Patricia hosted the 6th World Aquatic Babies Congress in 2001. This was Birthlight’s first international presentation. It was exhilarating to meet Latin American pioneers who saw water as a developmental matrix, simultaneously sensory, motor and cognitive, for babies-families together. Hugo went on to study at Turin university in Italy and refined his own creative approach to ‘water activities’ over twenty years of teaching experience in his Turin swim school Acquarella. Hugo’s uniquely fun but solid, well researched work has been acclaimed at many international conferences. At our Birthlight 2016 Light on Water International Conference in Cambridge UK, Hugo and his wife Serenella conveyed their passion for understanding and responding to the curiosity of babies and small children in water.

Hugo has developed an unmissable 3-part webinar combining theory and practice in a thorough, well-structured and lively presentation: 7,14 and 28 June evenings (London time) livestream, also available online for those who cannot join in. This reasonably costed webinar (£35) carries CPD points for both STA and Birthlight members. This webinar is of interest not only to baby swimming teachers but also to baby yoga teachers.

Book Your Place!

Webinar: Hugo Lavalle – Acquarella Swim School (Italy)

7, 14, 28th June 2021 7pm – 9:30pm

£35

Hugo Lavalle

Water Activities Teacher, Researcher, Speaker at International Conferences