Hospital Promotes Brain Development in Newborns

Norman Regional Hospital has just launched a new program to inform and equip parents with the knowledge and tools they need to maximize their child’s brain capacity from day one.

Build a Brain, Build a Life, Build a Community® is a program that helps educate parents and caregivers about the crucial role they play in helping to develop a child’s brain and the importance of talk and interaction to fuel healthy brain development in the first three years of a child’s life.

The first family to experience the Build a Brain program are the Hopkins. Mom Kylie welcomed her second son earlier this week at the recently expanded Norman Regional Hospital.

Registered nurse Alexis Pastor explained the program and complimentary bag to the family.

“It's a resource that helps inform, equip and support parents on the importance of brain development and your new baby. Your child's brain grows the fastest during these first three years of life. So, simple things such as talking, singing, reading, playing with your baby can help promote deep brain development,” Pastor, registered nurse said.

Bringing this program to the community was important to the hospital which welcomes about 3,000 new lives into the world each year.

“With the knowledge that 85 percent of a baby’s brain is being built in their first three years, we should be teaching parents — who are their child’s first teacher — how important their role is in early brain development,” said Richie Splitt, President and CEO of Norman Regional Hospital. “Build a Brain is built on decades of clinical research and studies, and we’re so pleased to be offering this to new parents in our community right here at Norman Regional.”

The program also encourages new parents to talk to their babies throughout the day, even during routine activities like feeding, changing, and bathing. Participating parents watch a short video encouraging them to talk to their babies even if they can't yet talk back, as babies can still hear and learn from the words spoken to them.

A resource bag called the "Brain Bag" is handed out to new parents, which includes a developmental milestone booklet called "Baby Steps." This booklet helps parents track their baby's development from birth to kindergarten, including milestones and screen time.

Pastor emphasized the importance of developmental milestones and the introduction of the "Build a Brain" resource for the patients.

“Introducing Build a Brain was a fun experience for me. I think having this resource for first time moms, or second time moms, is a great developmental milestone thing for babies and parents. Sometimes we are tired, they don't get a lot of sleep with having a newborn in the house. So, having a resource to write information down and just remember some key things growing up with their life, is going to be a big help,” Pastor said.

The proud new parents to a newborn and a three-year-old son, shared how their two birthing experiences were different but memorable at Norman Regional Hospital.

“(Our son) Krew was our little NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit) baby. When he was born, he spent 10 days in the NICU. That was definitely a hard thing to go through, but the staff here made it better. With son Kendrick, he's had a perfect, very quick experience, in and out, and it's been awesome, either way,” Hopkins said.

Father Shane Hopkins was excited about the hospital promoting brain development.

“I think it’s great the hospital is trying to get that information out there,” new dad Shane Hopkins said. “I think it’s going to be very helpful those first few years, stuff we’ve tried to do with Krew already. You know, talking to him a lot, reading books to him every night.”

You can learn more about Build a Brain at BuildaBrainNow.com.