Developmental Follow-Up Clinic information

What is it?

The developmental follow-up clinic is a routine clinic where we observe your child’s growth and development, including their general health, movements, feeding and early communication and play skills.

Occasionally babies who are born very early or who have a period of illness after birth may need a little extra help with their development. In the clinic we can show you the best ways to position and play with your baby to encourage the development of their movement, feeding, early communication and play skills.

Some of these appointments will be done by video call and some as face to face appointments. Face to face appointments will either be held at the Royal Hospital for Children Outpatients Department for babies from RHC and RAH neonatal units or at the Princess Royal Maternity Outpatients Department for babies from the PRM neonatal unit. You will be given information about the appointment type and on how to access the video call with your appointment letter. We use NHS Attend Anywhere to undertake video calls.

Who will we see?

At the clinic you will see one of the doctors from the neonatal unit, a children’s physiotherapist and speech and language therapist.

Why does my baby need to attend?

Babies are referred to the clinic for a variety of reasons

• All babies who are born more than 6 weeks early ( less than 34 weeks gestation)
• Babies born with a condition known to affect a child’s development
• Babies with severe illness after birth which could affect their development.

Your consultant will have explained the reason for referral to the clinic.

How often will my baby attend?

Clinic appointments are usually arranged when your baby is around Term – 6 weeks old, 4m, 8m, 12m, 18 months old and sometimes 2y old. If your baby was born prematurely this will be calculated using their Corrected Gestational Age (CGA). The corrected age is the age they would be if born on their due date (eg if born 3 months early take 3 months off their actual age).

When assessing your baby’s development we will always use their corrected age.

Depending upon your child’s reason for attending the developmental clinic, we may continue to see you in clinic until the age of 2 years corrected. Your child will have a formal, standardised assessment of their developmental stage at this visit.

This clinic will let us see how your child is developing and allow us to provide you with appropriate advice and information at each visit with the aim of helping your child to reach their developmental milestones and encourage the skills needed for their future development.

More information

• This leaflet gives more information about the Neonatal Developmental Follow-Up Clinic.
• For further information on child development, prematurity impact on development and advice on helping your child’s development, please visit the NHS GGC KIDS website
• For more information on the RHC Physiotherapy department please visit: RHCG - Physiotherapy Service