The Neonatal Therapy Service (NTS) is a team of professionals who provide early intervention for babies and their families. Contact email: CTM.Neonataltherapyservice@wales.nhs.uk.
The aims of the service are:
You baby’s development is measured from their corrected age, that is from the date they were due, not from the day they were born. It is important to correct for your baby’s prematurity to give an accurate assessment of their developmental abilities. We do this because babies’ brains grow and develop according to a pre-programmed biological sequence and also in response to their experiences. When a baby is born early, their brain and the rest of their neurological system are yet to develop and mature to the same degree as a baby born at term.
For example, if your baby had a gestational age of 28 weeks at birth, their brain and the rest of their neurological system would need a full 12 weeks of growth before we would expect them to function as a newborn born at term. Therefore, the developmental expectations of a premature baby are based on corrected age, rather than chronological (actual) age. We generally make this correction until children are 2 years (corrected age) because, by this time, most premature babies have ‘caught up’ and there is little or no difference noted from a baby born at term.