Transforming infant wellbeing : research, policy and practice for the first 1,001 critical days

Fifty years of childhood / Penelope Leach -- Changing society's attitudes to children and families / Al Aynsley-Green -- Circuits and circumstances: importance of earliest relationships and their context / Robin Balbernie -- Attachment theory: research and application to practice and policy / Pasco Fearon -- Maternal representations in pregnancy: importance of the mothers' relationship with their unborn babies / Jane Barlow -- Keeping the baby in mind: new insights into the links between maternal childhood trauma, mental health problems in pregnancy and outcomes for the child / Susan Pawlby, Dominic Plant, Carmine M. Pariante -- Postnatal depression and the under-twos / Lynne Murray and Peter Cooper -- Health inequalities and the importance of action on perinatal risk factors / Angela Donkin and Michael Marmot -- Stacked odds: how social background can stifle early child potential / Chris Cuthbert -- Antenatal and postnatal mental health problems: prevention and treatment / Alain Gregoire -- Stress in pregnancy can change fetal and child development / Vivette Glover -- Birth trauma / Diane S. Speier -- Investing in early human development / Mary E. Young -- What makes a difference? Supporting families in caring for children / Peter Fonagy -- Evidence-based interventions for the first 1001 days / Kirsten Asmussen, Leon Feinstein, Haroon Chowdry, Jack Martin -- Transforming infancy through paternity and parental leave / Margaret O'Brien -- Towards an evidence-based population approach to supporting parenting in the early years / Matthew R. Sanders and Alina Morawska -- Relationship-based interventions in the early years / Robin Balbernie -- Child protection in the community: recognising and responding to signs of neglect / Ruth Gardner and Camilla Rosan -- Mellow programmes for especially vulnerable parents and parents-to-be / Christine Puckering -- Fathers in the perinatal period: taking their mental health into account / Jill Domoney, Jane Iles, Paul Ramchandani -- 'SafeCare', the case for parent--infant language training / Angie S. Guinn, John R. Lutzker, Mark Chaffin -- Video Interaction Guidance: promoting secure attachment and optimal development for children, parents and professionals / Hilary Kennedy and Angela Underdown -- Life is 'like a box of chocolates': interventions with special-needs babies / Stella Acquarone -- Themes arising / Penelope Leach -- Norfolk Parent-Infant Mental Health Attachment Project (PRIMAP): working towards integration in attachment, mental health and social care / Verity Smith, Richard Pratt, Catherine Thomas and Danny Taggart -- Building research findings into policy and policy into action / Timothy Loughton.

Transforming Infant Wellbeing brings together science and policy to highlight the critical importance of the first 1001 days of infancy: the period from conception to the second birthday. Introduced and edited by Penelope Leach, who uniquely combines academic knowledge of infant development with the ability to write about it for wide audiences, the book has at its heart 25 original articles by acknowledged experts in different aspects of infant health and development. Brought together, they showcase innovative science and best practices to a wide range of readers: to scientific colleagues in different disciplines; to politicians and policy makers; to local authority commissioners and specialist advisors, statutory and voluntary organisations and parents. This book has a two-fold purpose in science and in social policy. First, to collect new papers by leading scientists in a single volume, which ensures they reach a broad audience. Second, by introducing and commenting on the significance of these new findings, the book highlights both the benefits that accrue to society when it acts accordingly, and the costs, financial and social, of our failure to do so. In the last 50 years, interest in infant development and especially maternal and infant mental health has burgeoned. A large number of issues at the forefront of child development research mirror those of yesterday, but the research brought to bear upon them has transformed. Thanks largely to technological and statistical advances, we now know a great deal that researchers of earlier generations could only surmise. However, increasing knowledge of infancy has not been matched by an increasing impact on parents and professionals, politicians and policy makers. Bringing contemporary studies involving pregnancy, birth, infancy and toddlerhood together, along with the undisputed evidential findings that flow from them, large gaps between what is known and what is done become apparent. By focusing on what can be done to fill those gaps, Transforming Infant Wellbeing renders inescapable the need to rethink current priorities. It represents essential reading for researchers, parents and policy makers of infancy.