Babies’ Bodies and Brains: Multi-System Assessment and Treatment of the Premature/Medically Complex Infant for the Rehabilitation Professional - IN-PERSON - Two Days 2026

Babies’ Bodies and Brains: Multi-System Assessment and Treatment of the Premature/Medically Complex Infant for the Rehabilitation Professional is organized by Education Resources, Inc. (ERI) and will be held from Jun 05 - 06, 2026 at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta Support Center, Atlanta, Georgia, United States of America.

Description:
This intermediate-advanced course will provide a systems-based approach to assess the premature/medically complex infant in the NICU/PICU setting. It will focus on understanding the co-morbidities associated with prematurity and medically-complex infants and increase critical reasoning skills for the clinician to create treatment plans to advance motor and feeding skills for the infant.

This intermediate-advanced course will provide a systems-based approach to assess the premature/medically complex infant in the NICU/PICU setting. This course will focus on understanding the co-morbidities associated with prematurity and medically-complex infants and increase critical reasoning skills for the clinician to create treatment plans to advance motor and feeding skills for the infant. It will build on information provided during the “Baby Beats and Breaths” course but can be a stand-alone course for advanced clinicians working with medically complex infants. This course will provide the clinician with hands-on treatment techniques for positioning/handling infants in the Small Baby unit (infants under 32 weeks gestation), oral motor interventions to support pre-feeding/feeding development, edema management including lymphatic facilitation, post-surgical considerations for infants, trunk facilitation to support cough development, extremity facilitation to support ribcage development, pelvic floor activation for stooling, abdominal facilitation for infants with GI complications, scar assessment/treatment, and feeding techniques for infants with multi-system co-morbidities.

Learning Objectives:

• Identify three anatomical and kinesiological developmental changes for the premature and newborn thoracic and abdominal cavity as related to motor development for oral feeding and postural control
• Apply at least two positioning/handling interventions for small babies, with focus on interventions for infants 28 weeks and younger
• Identify three neurological and gastrointestinal co-morbidities of prematurity (including anatomical changes post-surgical interventions for necrotizing enterocolitis) and the effects those co-morbidities have on feeding/motor development for the infant
• Differentiate the lymphatic system of the premature infant from that of the full-term infant and how those differences affect feeding skills
• Assess infant edema within face, extremities, and trunk using objective measurements.
• Apply two treatment strategies with positioning, handling and edema management using the provided case study
• Integrate a systems approach to a current individualized care plan for a premature and/or medically complex infant