Speaker Type: Perinatal Care Through a Trauma Informed Lens Lecture Pack
Country: USA
Biography:
Dr Marilyn R Sanders is a board-certified pediatrician and neonatologist who cares for critically ill babies, infants, and their families at the Connecticut Children’s Medical Center Newborn Intensive Care Unit in Hartford, CT. Dr Sanders did her pediatric residency at the University of Connecticut School of Medicine and her fellowship in Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine at Johns-Hopkins School of Medicine. She is a Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Connecticut School of Medicine. She also provides neurodevelopmental follow-up for babies and infants up to 3 years old. Her scholarly interest is providing trauma-informed care to hospitalized newborns, infants, young children, and their families. Her focus is the impact of the autonomic nervous system’s sense of safety, danger, or life threat on our emotions and behavior. She lectures throughout the United States and Europe. She has authored papers and book chapters on trauma-informed care for young infants, children, and their families in the hospital setting. Dr Sanders is currently under book contract with WW Norton and Company. Her book, to be published in 2020, discusses implications of the Polyvagal Theory, for the well-being and development of infants, children, and adolescents.
Human infants expect to engage and connect to their adult care providers to feel safe, secure, and thrive. The autonomic or unconscious nervous system alerts us whether we feel safe, in danger, or in a life-threatening situation. When we feel safe, we are open, calm and ready to engage. When we feel in danger, our sympathetic nervous system is activated; our hearts race, and we may either lash out or leave. Finally, if we feel our lives are endangered, we may collapse, shut down or dissociate. Neuroscientist Stephen Porges calls the unconscious awareness of our safety, danger, or life threat, neuroception.
When babies are hospitalized in a newborn intensive care unit. (NICU), their biological expectancies of physical and emotional proximity to their caregivers are disrupted. Both hospitalized babies and their families may have neuroceptions of danger or even life threat reflected in their behaviors and vital signs. Supporting parasympathetic vagal tone through the continuous presence of families, skin to skin care, and forming strong relationships can mitigate the trauma of a hospitalization in the NICU.
Trauma-informed care in the NICU supports babies and their families to remain together, supports parents as the primary relationship for their babies and builds safety, security, and connectedness among babies, families, and staff.
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