Newborn Care

Providing newborn care at A Bright Future Pediatrics in Plano, Texas brings us much joy and honor. We love meeting new babies and their parents and helping them navigate through the earliest days of life. Our pediatricians have experience caring for healthy babies, sick babies, premature babies, multiples, and babies with growth and developmental issues.

Some of the first things we’ll check your newborn for are:

  • Weight, length, and head circumference
  • Feeding, peeing, pooping, and sleeping
  • Developmental health / reflexes
  • Umbilical cord and circumcision healing
  • Heart and lung conditions
  • Skin, spine, hips, and feet
  • Blood test
  • Hearing screening
  • Eye health

We’ll monitor your infant’s growth and development to ensure he or she is thriving. If there are any causes for concern, such as a significant weight loss or abnormally low or high measurements, your doctor will let you know what to do.

Next, we’ll discuss feeding, peeing, pooping, and sleeping habits. Although it may be hard to see any habits with a newborn baby, you will notice patterns that can tell you how he or she is doing. For example, newborns should feed every 1 to 3 hours and no more than 4 hours between feedings. Keep track of how much and how often your baby drinks formula or breast milk. Newborns should have one poopy diaper per day in the beginning and several wet diapers. As far as sleeping goes, newborns sleep about 16 hours per day or more.

After evaluating your newborn’s growth and habits, we can begin to understand your baby’s developmental health. Some of the things we want to check are to make sure he or she responds to sound and has strong reflexes for rooting, sucking, and grasping.

A physical exam will be conducted to listen to your infant’s heartbeat and inspect the umbilical cord, circumcision, spine, hips, and feet. A blood test and newborn hearing screening will be performed at the hospital. Your baby will also receive his or her first immunizations in the hospital and more at subsequent doctor visits. You can view the AAP recommended immunization and vaccination schedules here.

Newborns are unique individuals, and no two are exactly alike. We encourage you to ask questions and let us know if you have any concerns at all. No question is unimportant. To make an appointment for a newborn visit, please call 972-208-8668 for A Bright Future Pediatrics in Plano, Texas.