Guest Author - Angela England

Boosting Your Baby's Brain Power by Holly Engel-Smothers and Susan M. Heim was published by Great Potential Press, Inc. The ISBN is 0-910707-90-1 and the book was released in December 2008.

There are eight chapters that take you through each aspect of infant development, exploring windows of opportunity and how to make the most of them as parents. I love that this book even covers factors in the womb that can help optimize the growth and awareness of the baby during pregnancy.

In Chapter 1, "Baby's Got Brains: Jumping Through Vital 'Windows of Opportunity'" the authors start out with a discussion of brain development. This is the chapter I most appreciated as the Pregnancy Editor here, since it covered several specific factors that can impact fetal brain growth in the womb.

Interesting facts were sprinkled throughout Boosting Your Baby's Brain Power - some of them quite stunning. For example, the total length of neural connections in the brain, should they be laid out end-to-end, would stretch 62,000 miles! That is astounding!

After the first chapter, Boosting Your Baby's Brain Power goes on to cover several areas of development. Attachment and bonding; language skills, vision, hearing, motor skills, temperament, and overall health are all discussed.

Boosting Your Baby's Brain Power is both an easy read, and a highly informative book. The chapters are presented in a way that would be easy for a mother to read in small snippets of time - a must for postpartum mothers! Light weight and manageable in size, this book would make a great bedside or bathroom book to flip through in her spare moments.

I also love the inspirational, informative quotes that head each chapter a section. One of my favorite sayings is one by Frank A. Clark, "A baby is born with a need to be loved - and never outgrows it." While this book certainly won't make a mother feel more love for her newborn than she already does, it may well help her express that love in some powerful and meaningful ways.

Boosting Your Baby's Brain Power is a great gift choice for any expectant mother and is available on Amazon.com or from the Great Potential Press, Inc. website.