Choose the pathway that fits your role.
A health professional registered or licensed with their national regulatory body. For example: doctors, nurses, midwives, and IBCLCs with health professional registration.
A professional working with families outside the registered health professions. For example: doulas, sleep consultants, childbirth and parenting educators, and IBCLCs without health professional registration.
As both a first time mum and health care provider I've now really appreciated how the range of advice and early infant care approaches, often with no evidence, can be so overwhelming, contradictory and make families more uncertain. Possums has been such a game changer for both our family and for myself in my work sphere.
Gabby Jones
A combination of implementing these strategies and also learning what is normal behavior for an infant has improved the wellbeing of many of my patients who are Mothers. I highly recommend the program and hope that it can one day be integrated into general practice training more broadly.
Dr Melody Jackson
Mums are finding the gestalt breastfeeding approach VERY helpful indeed... Two tongue tie clinics have been cancelled as there has been such a big reduction in appointments made.
Sally Tedstone
All I can hope for is that your approach will quickly catch on and become the norm... I truly believe that if it was the norm to care for babies (and families) in the ways you have outlined, it could turn the course for so many other societal struggles.
Danielle Sharon
I found the NDC possums approach to sleep and settling so helpful... By integrating the science on infant sleep and nervous system dysregulation with my existing strategies for mental health, I am seeing positive change in client mood and coping.
Catherine Stovold
I now feel more equipped than ever to support families in optimizing the developmental care of their infants, especially in the crucial area of sleep. Dr. Douglas's evidence based insights into the interplay between breastfeeding, sleep and parental mental health have been invaluable.
Rene Sandeman
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Health professionals reported: improvements in knowledge on infant sleep regulation, the mother–infant relationship and ACT; improvements in health professionals' own sleep quality; improvements in psychological flexibility; and a reduction in professional burnout and secondary traumatic stress.
Whittingham et al (2020) `Evaluating the “possums” health professional training in parent–infant sleep`, Infant Mental Health Journal, 41(5), pp. 603-613.
…the approach was found to be acceptable to parents and perceived by them to align parent and infant needs, improve their quality of life, and reduce their focus on perceived infant sleep problems.
Ball et al (2018) 'The Possums Infant Sleep Program: parents' perspectives on a novel parent-infant sleep intervention in Australia', Sleep Health: Journal of the National Sleep Foundation, 4(6), pp. 519-526.
… A clear positive effect on the quality of emotional availability in the relationship, at least as perceived by mothers. As such, the intervention appears to have a positive effect on the environment that supports good sleep.
Closson et al (2020) `Evaluation of possums sleep intervention: A pilot feasibility study`, Journal of Nursing Education and Practice, 10(2), pp. 15–23.
… A promising tool for promoting parental attitude and behaviour-change, that aims to adjust parental expectations and reduce negative thinking around infant sleep, promote responsive infant care in the face of infant-related sleep disruption and fatigue, and support parental well-being during the first year of parenthood.
Ball et al (2020) `Development and evaluation of "Sleep, Baby & You"—An approach to supporting parental well-being and responsive infant caregiving`, Plos One, 15(8), e0237240.
The Possum infant sleep program provided equivalent positive results on sleep parameters compared to usual care while advocating a more cued response. The critical difference was evident in sustained breastfeeding.
Öztürk, et al (2021) `Possums-based parental education for infant sleep: cued care resulting in sustained breastfeeding`, European Journal of Pediatrics, 180(6), pp. 1769–1776.
These encouraging results support the hypothesis that the gestalt approach to fit and hold increases intra-oral breast tissue volume by eliminating conflicting vectors of force.
Perrella et al (2022), ‘A brief gestalt intervention changes ultrasound measures of tongue movement during breastfeeding: case series’, BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth, 22(94).
Preliminary evaluation demonstrates decreased duration of evening and night-time crying and improved maternal mood 3-4 weeks after intervention.
Douglas et al (2013), ‘Preliminary evaluation of a primary care intervention for cry-fuss behaviours in the first 3-4 months of life (‘The Possums Approach’): effects on cry-fuss behaviours and maternal mood’, Australian Journal of Primary Health, 21, pp:38-45
Findings of this study are consistent with access to NDC/ Possums services being efficacious for infants’ crying, maternal perception of their baby’s sleep problems, maternal sleep satisfaction, maternal experiential avoidance and maternal risk of postnatal depression… These preliminary findings suggest that NDC/Possums programs are effective and are relevant to public health, clinical practice, and health professional education settings.
Crawford et al (2022), ‘An evaluation of Neuroprotective Developmental Care (NDC/Possums Programs) in the First 12 Months of Life’, Matern Child Health Journal, 26, pp.110-123
Mothers in this study found that NDC supported them to balance a range of different occupations flexibly, including leisure and social occupations and occupations to care for themselves.
Crawford et al (2023), ‘New perspectives on responsive infant care: A qualitative study of the ways in which Neuroprotective Developmental Care (NDC) shapes mother-infant co-occupations’, Journal of Occupational Science, 31, pp.337-353.
Tenth evaluation completed. Publication forthcoming.
