I do love a good piece of empirical, peer-reviewed research. I was, therefore, delighted to receive an email from the Life Study Team at University College London (UCL) requesting some assistance.
The team is looking for mums and dads to give up a couple of hours to take part in a pilot study. It’s an important project that seeks to understand the factors that affect a baby’s development before and after a child’s birth and how these factors may impact on future health, education and life chances.
Please note that both mums and dads are invited to participate. The team has found there are considerably more ways to contact expectant mothers than fathers so men, please don’t be shy, you are very much needed!
The team wants to hear from:
- mums-to-be who are at least 20 weeks pregnant,
- their partners,·
- mums of babies who are about six or 12 months old.
Professor Carol Dezateux, Director of Life Study and paediatrician at UCL’s Institute of Child Health, explains:
“There are many things we need to understand about how babies develop before and after birth and what it means for their future health, education or life chances.
“For example, why have illnesses like asthma, eczema and food allergies become more common? What are the best ways we can prepare children to start school?
“Life Study aims to collect information about children in pregnancy and their very early years to understand how experiences early in life shape health, development and well being as children grow up.
“It’s important that Life Study involves families from different backgrounds, communities and cultures to understand how to give all children the best possible start in life.”
At this stage the research team needs volunteers to try out some of the questions and also to test the measures and processes to ensure the design of the main study is correct. If you can help or would like like to find out more, you can contact the Life Study research team on freephone 0800 652 3751 or email lifestudy@natcen.ac.uk
