A friend and colleague of mine is in school for Physical Therapy at the UW-Madison Medical School and she asked us to participate in a Healthy Baby Lab for her class. I am very interested in understanding the science behind Silas’ development (for instance, check out the WNYC’s RadioLab After Birth podcast, recommended to us by Grandma Weaver) so I jumped on the chance to learn from the PT students and faculty. We went this morning with our friend Kalea to see what they had to say. All in all Silas has met all the benchmarks for a 6-7 week old baby. However, it was clear to one of the PT faculty that Silas and his parents have been favoring his right side a bit too much. He clearly prefers to look to the right (which I already kinda knew- check out *all* of his chair photos over the first six weeks, he is always looking to his right. I thought it might be simply because the light from the front door shines on his right but it is clearly more than that) which has resulted in a small flat spot on the right side of his head. We will work to have Silas sleep more on his left side, encourage him to work on the left side during tummy time and try to more consciously pick him up on our right side to exercise his left gaze. I also learned about all kinds of fascinating reflexes that he still has from birth like clenching his fists and toes when touched. There is also something called “RTI” (I really can’t remember what that stands for) which is a reflex that moves his arms in opposition to the movement of his head. Now that I know this reflex exists, I have seen Silas do this several times already. Those movements that seemed so random to me just hours ago now seem to fall into a much more predictable pattern. I didn’t get the best shots of all of these reflexes and poses at Baby Lab so I took a few shots of Silas having this “RTI” reflex in his crib and a shot of how high he is able to raise his head now during tummy time. During our Healthy Baby Lab visit he went up to a 90 degree position, amazing both his mom and the PTs!
A Half-Smile Photo from Baby Lab
Group One Checking Silas Out
Group Two Checking Out the Toe Grabbing Reflex
Silas' Typical Back Arch
RTI Reflex One Way
RTI Reflex the Other Way
Head Lift
Head Lift
Totally cool, what fun!!!! I love the head lift photo – way to go Silas and Molly. Love to all, Babbee
Whoa! I’ve seen the “head lift” look before! I think it was a result of me not cleaning the bathroom or eating microwave pizza for the fourth time in four days. I miss it dearly.