30 July 2024
Christiane Weintzen, head of the Psy-Jeunes service, psychologist and psychotherapist for children and adolescents, gives an exciting insight into the new parent-infant consultation service. This innovative Red Cross project helps parents to better understand their baby’s signals, thereby fostering a healthy bond.
Project launch and financing
The project received verbal approval in January and written confirmation from the Ministry of Education, Children and Youth in May, meaning that the counselling could begin recently.
Focus on regulation disorders
The consultation focuses on the treatment of regulation disorders in babies. These disorders may manifest themselves in sleeping, feeding or crying behaviours. Babies are born with many self-regulatory abilities, which can be developed with the right support from their parents. However, when self-regulation is disrupted, sleeping and feeding problems or intense crying appear. Counselling helps parents to understand their baby’s signals and respond appropriately. Sensitivity is essential: parents learn to perceive their child correctly, interpret it correctly and respond immediately to its needs. ‘Sensitivity is essential here: parents learn to perceive their child correctly, interpret it correctly and respond immediately to its needs,’ stresses Christiane Weintzen, Red Cross employee.
Influence of constraints
Babies are born with different temperaments; some are more easily unbalanced than others and need more external support. Physical problems such as depression, postnatal depression or anxiety disorders in one of the parents can interfere with interaction with the baby and increase stress levels. These stresses are intensely felt by the child through changes in the parents’ posture or tone. When a mother or father is tense, the baby realises that something is wrong, which destabilises them even more and can trigger a negative spiral. Frequent crying, little food and little sleep can be the consequences.
Method of working with parents
Counselling is based on the principle that all parents want to give their best. This positive attitude is the basis of parent-infant work, in which parents and babies are supported in a caring, non-judgemental and respectful way.
The work is mainly supported by video interventions. With the parents’ consent, short videos of parent-child interactions are recorded and analysed. Successful interactions as well as less successful passages are identified. The videos are then viewed with the parents, with the therapist helping the parents to discover the signs of relaxation and stress in the child. The parents learn to perceive and interpret their baby’s signals correctly, and develop strategies for reacting appropriately to their child’s needs.
‘A particularly pleasant experience during the consultation is when the parents‘ eyes light up when they look at a photo of a successful interaction and their self-confidence is boosted’.
Christiane Weintzen, psychologist & psychotherapist for children and adolescents
With this new parent-infant consultation within the Psy-Jeunes service, the Luxembourg Red Cross is sending out another signal in support of families and showing that help is available where it is most needed.