A child’s first steps are one of the great miracles in life—one we think of as a natural, intuitive process. But just as new parents foster positive digestive, emotional, and intellectual growth, we cannot leave it to nature and instinct alone to ensure that infants develop the solid musculoskeletal foundation they need.
Little bodies arrive completely dependent on us and malleable to just about every force imposed (often by us) on their body. And newborns are a never-ending process of physical change: bones are lengthening; nerves are forming connections between the brain and the muscles; muscles are strengthening, developing tone, and coordination. The problem is that the very devices modern parents depend on for hands-free parenting—the car seat, the carrier, the jumper, etc.—leave that precious developing bundle at the mercy of gravity and body alignment, which can wreak havoc on their development before it’s hardly begun.
Jen Goodman, a licensed physical therapist with nearly two decades of experience and a career focus in developmental pediatrics, shares the information all new parents need in SHAPING YOUR BABY’S FOUNDATION: Guide Your Baby to Sit, Crawl, Walk, Strengthen Muscles, Align Bones, Develop Healthy Posture, and Achieve Physical Milestones During the Crucial First Year: Grow Strong Together Using Cutting-Edge Foundation Training Principles. Goodman distills years of clinical practice and her work with husband Eric Goodman’s Foundation Training to create a guide to safely and effectively build a baby’s muscle tone, strengthen the child’s growing body, and set newborns on the path toward developing their earliest movement skills leading up to the act of walking.
You can learn more in this interview.
1) Why did you write this book?
To help parents and caregivers arm themselves with some tools that could help set their kiddos up to grow well and avoid some preventable bodily injuries and poor habits starting early that could compromise their developmental progress. Because I really believe it’s crucial to remember that the little body literally becomes the big body. I think that if we want our next generations to thrive, we can set them up to be in healthier stronger vessels and that happens if we start at the very start with healthy movement habits.
2) What is Foundation Training and why does it matter?
A well-aligned movement and breathing focused system of exercises to help teach the body a strong and stable way of moving and being. It’s wildly important because every body is up against the invisible force of gravity; and we all drive, use computers and phones and basically just do things that can pull our body out of its natural, healthy alignment with that force of gravity working against us. Honestly even kids in school looking down at desks and tablets could benefit from some of the principles of Foundation Training. A strong and stable spine is at less risk for issues that stem from compressed disks and nerves, which can affect the whole body on any of its systems. A body that has strong movement foundations, which this training system helps to set in place, is less at risk for poor muscle use patterns that lend to injury, and it’s therefore better primed to move through life with vitality, thriving. The system puts a lot of emphasis on the posterior chain of the body, it redefines the “core” as every muscle that attaches to the pelvis- front, back, sides, above & below- and in doing so, targets muscles that are often overlooked but are tremendously important for a body to move in the most optimal ways, strong and protected, naturally.
3) Why is it important for caregivers and parents to promote physical milestones in healthy ways from an early age?
Because they build upon each other. The earliest skills of lifting and moving the head can be done with healthy alignment or poor alignment; and the quality of how that is done will impact the quality of the skills that build upon that; skills that build the muscles of the trunk, for example. If those trunk, head, and neck skills are not building healthy alignment and muscles, the child’s sitting posture can be negatively affected. This may not seem like a big deal in the immediate but needs to be considered down the developmental line as it can impact how the upper and lower body relate to each other, which can become more pronounced when later skills, such as crawling to standing and walking begin emerging. If a little one starts walking off kilter, the repetitive forces the body encounters can be negative and cause damage over time that may be even more painful and pronounced over time, following them into toddlerhood, childhood, and potentially beyond.
My broader thoughts, especially after partnering with my husband, who helps adults retrain faulty movement patterns, are considering childhood and also the other end of the spectrum. Rhetorical question, but, how many adults might have benefited from focused work on setting healthy habits from the start?
4) Why is the physical fitness aspect of raising a baby - like carrying, extra twists and turns, and so on - so often overlooked (and why should it be a priority)?
I wish I knew why it’s overlooked because it seems too obvious to me. Carrying a baby is extra weight- plain and simple. If we are going about our maneuvers with poor alignment, the added weight can really wreak havoc on a body. Attention to posture during the everyday tasks adds up tremendously and can either build us up or break us down.
5) Why is it so important to teach caregivers to use “containers” correctly?
In a nutshell this is about gravity. A baby’s body has not yet learned how to muscularly engage in ways that will protect its spine and joints from the all powerful force of gravity. So, it’s up to the parent to look at how the baby is positioned within any given container- let’s say a car seat for example- because if the baby is slumping and the force of gravity is acting upon them (100% of the time) they will have an even more difficult time getting themself into a proper alignment. Their head and neck might twist and tilt, which might put their eyes at a cocked position to take-in their environment for one thing (so you’d then have to question the perceptual input their brain is receiving); it might also be compress important arteries and nerves in their neck (which could cause issues with oxygen to their brain as well as nervy zinger sensations to their muscles); and, if- goodness forbid- there are additional forces of impact in a collision, that poor alignment can be even more dangerous for the young developing body.
Each container comes with its own concerns and risks and there is a solid section in my book Shaping Your Baby’s Foundation (available now where books are sold) that goes over some of the main ones parents and caregivers encounter in the baby’s first year.
Broken into three parts, SHAPING YOUR BABY’S FOUNDATIONS tackles:
- Physical Basics about Your Baby: fundamental information about your baby’s physical structure, and some of the reflexes they exhibit; and a general outline of physical skills you should see them develop and how those movements relate to developing the natural curves of their spine.
- Guiding Your Baby from Horizontal to Vertical: guidance on how to position your baby on flat surfaces and in devices like car seats, highchairs and carriers as well as activities organized by age to help the baby gain the strengths and skills to steadily build their body's foundation. The activities include hundreds of full-color photos, and descriptions that highlight key details to help parents and caretakes understand where to place their hands and focus their energy.
- Optimizing Your Own Fitness: carefully selected Foundation Training exercises for parents and caretakers to help them prime their own muscles for everything from holding and carrying a baby to changing diapers at all hours. Also included are examples of how to do these movements with the little one in their life to Grow Stronger Together.
Written in Goodman’s gentle and accessible, yet authoritative, voice, and aided by over 400 full-color photographs to guide parents step-by-step through the first year of their baby’s life, SHAPING YOUR BABY’S FOUNDATION is a revolutionary parenting resource for a new generation.
Jen Goodman, PT, MSPT, is a licensed physical therapist with nearly two decades of experience helping babies and children of all ages and abilities to achieve optimal movement. Jen has worked clinically in the medical model of pediatric physical therapy in clinic and hospital-based outpatient settings, in charter schools and in home-based early intervention services with children 0–3 years old. This has given her a clear understanding of the power of adding structure to a baby’s earliest stages of physical development. She is passionate about empowering parents to guide the positions and movements of their babies, establishing physical foundations that will grow with their little ones both during and beyond their first year.
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