Did you know that your child’s brain development begins at conception?
This is because fulfilling the child’s requirement of nutrition for brain development is heavily dependent on the nutrition provided by the mother. If the mother makes sure that she is eating a diet rich in nutrition, it will add to her child’s brain development. Other than nutrition, factors such as genetics and environment (stimulation) affect the child’s brain growth and development. While the genetics cannot be altered, you can definitely provide the requisite nutrition and stimulation for your child’s brain development. Although brain development is a lifelong process, most of the growth and development takes place early on, in the first two years of a baby’s life.
Understanding nutrition as an important part of child brain development:
Right nutrition during pregnancy leads to improved health of the baby at birth. 90% of the child’s brain development happens by the age of 2 years.
DHA is an important nutrient that helps the development of brain cells and brain connections. However, your baby’s DHA is prone to oxidation, or in other words, it can get damaged and hence needs protection. Natural Vitamin E is a powerful anti-oxidant that prevents DHA from any oxidative damage and keeps it intact. This intact DHA or protected DHA helps in the child’s brain development. All of this nutrition helps develop the baby’s cognition, thereby creating a fertile ground for better IQ. So, giving the appropriate nutrition means feeding IQ to the baby!
What do we mean by Feed IQ?
Feed IQ literally means that a mother feeds ‘IQ’ to her baby through breastfeeding and stimulation i.e. infant brain exercises!
Nutrition for brain development for infants is of great importance. Find out about the benefits of Vitamin E for infants
1. Natural Vitamin E protects DHA from oxidation:
DHA is a building block that is important in enhancing brain development but it is also vulnerable to oxidative damage. Natural Vitamin E acts as a sentry guard protecting DHA from being oxidized with Lutein.
2. Natural Vitamin E is potent:
The synthetic Vitamin E found in dietary supplements and foods that are fortified, is only half as potent and active as Natural Vitamin E.
3. Natural Vitamin E in the babies’ brain:
Research showed that Natural Vitamin E accumulates in parts of the brain associated with visual memory and language development.
The nutritional requirements of a baby are fully dependant on a mother in the early stages of life. However, did you know that stimulation or infant brain exercises also play a vital role in shaping a baby’s cognitive development! Let us understand how stimulation or infant brain exercises actually help the child’s brain development.
Understanding the role of brain exercise as an important part of child brain development:
It is vital to know that the amount of cumulative vocabulary by 2 years of age is enormously predictive of later brain development or your child’s IQ. Hence, it is important that parents talk to the child from an early age to build their vocabulary and engage with their child in a meaningful manner.
Fetuses hear voices antenatally. Research has shown that a baby can identify its mother’s voice but it can’t differentiate between the father’s and a stranger’s voice.
Parents need to know that early life build up of social and cognitive skills comes with the advantage of time, which means in time these children will be more likely to be better at communicating. For example, at home you can reward your child for giving appropriate responses and even during the assessment, make sure to give them time to perform tasks. Let them do so at a pace comfortable to them.
Regardless of chronological age, the development clock begins at 40 weeks. Make sure you chose simpler activities, keeping in mind the infant’s capacity, before increasing the complexity of an activity.
Leave a Reply