We believe whole-heartedly that the wide range of care given at the Winnicott Baby Unit, (St. Mary’s Hospital, Paddington) including the provision of Positive Touch, Developmental Care, and parental support intervened, by the grace of God, to develop her into a quick-witted, balanced, and engaging child which has helped us all cope with the demands of her ongoing medical care.

Positive Touch and the developmental team played a vital role in Sameera’s care and development and also with us, in developing our relationship with our daughter. It also helped us in employing appropriate coping strategies during some harrowing times in her early life.

As time has moved on, some of the key techniques learnt during that time have continued to help us with Sameera’s upbringing and we have become enthusiastic advocates of the principles to the extent that we wish all parents had the opportunity to learn what we’ve learnt (without the medical issues of course) in order to best influence their children during those crucial formative months and years.

We are adamant that whilst the normal neonatal nurses on the unit do an excellent job, their focus is on their schedules and so performing a baby’s ‘cares’ speedily is the driving objective, e.g. nappy change, feeding, bloods, etc., and execution of this duty is the baseline support that should be expected of any ‘leading’ medical facility.

The role of Positive Touch surpasses this baseline by employing a more rounded care and health ethos through the teaching of techniques such as ‘adapted infant massage’, ‘still holding’, ‘nurturing touch’ making it possible to communicate even to babies…without words!