Welcome

Laurence Vaivre-Douret

The Quality of Life of New-born Infants Body and Dynamics of Development Publication date : October 1, 2003

How should infants be carried? How should they be handled during nappy changing? How should they be touched to improve the development of their senses? How should infants be massaged to enhance muscle tone?
Based on her long experience with infants in a hospital environment, Laurence Vaivre-Douret offers the reader a thorough and original programme of infant healthcare, which takes into account babies’ real needs and skills.
The programme, illustrated here with many examples, is known in French as PMSE for "Portage, Manipulation, Sollicitations d’éveil et de confort, Environnment" (Carrying, Manipulating, Eliciting Learning Skills and Comfort, Environment), and addresses all aspects of newborn and infant healthcare. The programme’s theoretical foundations are clearly expressed in language that should be accessible to all readers, both specialists and laypeople, and should enable them to understand, and respect, the way infants function and the major stages of their physical and emotional development from birth to 18 months.
Laurence Vaivre-Douret, a psychologist and specialist in psychomotor disorders, is a research fellow at INSERM and one of the top French specialists in child development and in learning disorders. She works in Professor Golse’s department of child psychiatry, at Hôpital Necker-Enfants Malades, in Paris.