March is Trisomy Awareness Month

Trisomy 18 Awareness Month and Books for Developmentally Disabled Babies

This is a little shout out to someone special to me, and to all who may also be raising little ones with special needs. I married into a remarkable family 51 years ago. One of the younger cousins has a 3 year old daughter born with Trisomy 18. This syndrome causes severe developmental delays due to an extra chromosome 18.

Now I don’t pretend to know much about developmentally delayed youngsters, but I do know about, and care about, reading with babies. Sharing books with babies has a huge impact on multiple levels. Shared reading stimulates a baby’s brain development, and acts as a bonding ritual with the family. But for babies with some more challenges, is reading still beneficial?

Yes, of course! According to my cousin Nga, shared reading also does marvelous things to help a child with physical challenges. For example, interactive books help a child’s coordination, providing flaps and pages to lift and turn. By hearing a varied vocabulary, repeatedly as in the story of a picture book, babies get needed audial and visual stimuli. Does all of this sound familiar?

Here’s a photo of Zoe with a lift-the-flap book. As Nga mentioned, the physical interaction with the book is great for a child who struggles with their hand eye coordination. Here are three suggestions of lift the flap books for your young ones:

Little Blue Truck Springtime by Alice Schertle and Jill McElmurry

What Happens Next? by Cheryl Christian, illustrated by Laura Dwight

Babies, Babies! by Debby Slier

Thank you Nga for sending these beautiful photos of Zoe and her parents, grandparents, and her older brother Lucas reading and enjoying books together.

Nga Nguyen Peterson is a tireless mom and advocate. Trisomy 18 kids are beating the odds because of the lifesaving interventions and therapies they are being given. Sadly there are still too many areas all over this country and around the world where there is still discrimination, bias, and prejudice against babies born with a trisomy. Doctors may tell an expecting family that Trisomy 18 is incompatible with life. This has to stop and the only way it can is through education, advocacy, and awareness.

Nga offers an easy way to show your support below. 

No one fights for her child quite like a Mother and we all felt that Proverbs 31:8 said it best – “Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute.”

With that, I’m excited to kick off the month and share this awesome shirt that a group of fierce Trisomy Mothers and I helped design to spread awareness and advocacy for Trisomy. As an added bonus, $1 from every one of these shirts sold in March will be donated to SOFT – Support Organization for Trisomy 18, 13, and Related Disorders (www.trisomy.org) which is a trusted charitable organization that supports families with trisomy.

If you’d like one of these shirts, the link to order https://aftercoffeedesigns.net/ You can even customize the back to support the child or cause you are most passionate about, just as we have done for our own Zoe Angelinh! A very special THANK YOU goes to After Coffee Designs for helping us bring this vision to life! ?https://aftercoffeedesigns.net

Please join me and my fellow Trisomy Tribe this month in advocating for our kids and spreading the word that Chromosomes should not determine the value of a life.

#blessed #zoeangelinh #trisomy18 #rulebreaker

#redefiningtrisomy18

#compatiblewithlife #trisomyawarenessmonth