Despite pressures facing young families, parents take precious moments to play with their babies
Four in five primary caregivers of nine-month-old babies reported cuddling, talking and playing with their little one several times a day, in England's first national long-term study of babies in over two decades, led by UCL (University College London).
More than half engaged in physical or turn-taking play, singing, pretend games and noisy play with their babies several times a day – activities which were linked to improved early language development. Around three quarters showed their babies picture books or took them outside at least once a day.
For just over one in 14 (7.4%) of these babies, most of those daily interactions will be with their father, who is their primary caregiver. Just 20 years ago, only one in 1,000 (0.11%) of nine-month-olds were cared for primarily by their dad at this age.
The first report from the Children of the 2020s study, published today by the UK Department for Education (DfE) and led by UCL in partnership with Ipsos and the universities of Cambridge and Oxford, and Birkbeck, University of London, revealed that these home activities are having positive effects on babies’ understanding of common words, like ‘ball’, ‘bye-bye’ and ‘mummy’, as babies that played more with caregivers understood more words at this age.
Overall, nine-month-olds understood an average of 14 out of 51 common words. This was similar to pre-pandemic norms, despite added pressure on today’s families.
The findings also showed that parents are navigating significant challenges in their babies’ first months, with a quarter facing at least some financial strain and around a fifth reporting seeking help from a doctor for feelings of depression since the birth of their child.
Commissioned by the DfE, Children of the 2020s is following more than 8,500 families and their babies, born in England between September and November 2021. It is the first long-term, nationally representative study of babies since the UK Millennium Cohort Study was launched more than 20 years ago. Children of the 2020s will follow families for at least the first five years of their children’s lives, shedding new light on the factors that can influence early years development. The first survey took place when the babies were, on average, nine and a half months old.
The first findings from the study paint a picture of a new generation of infants and their families.
Today’s parents
- 32% of today’s primary caregivers were on parental leave from their job when their child was nine months old, compared to just 2.5% of primary caregivers 20 years ago.
- Compared to parents raising children two decades ago, today’s caregivers are more likely to be educated to degree level or higher (50% v 33%), and employed (71% v 51%).
Family finances
- 25% of families with nine-month-olds had experienced significant financial strain, such as having difficulties managing finances, not keeping up with bills, being unable to afford essential baby items, and having to skip or cut the size of meals.
- Today’s parents are less likely to own their home (50% v 64%) and more likely to rent (42% v 31%) than parents two decades ago.
- 47% of today’s parents own their home with the help of a loan or mortgage, and 3% of families own their home outright. Among those renting when their babies were nine months, 24% rented from a private landlord, 10% from a local authority, and 8% from a housing association.
Childcare
- 43% of families were using some form of regular childcare when their babies were nine months. Of these families, most were using informal childcare provided by relatives or friends. However, one in eight were using formal childcare such as day nurseries or childminders.
- Parents on the highest incomes were almost six times as likely to use formal childcare (23% v 4%) than those from the most disadvantaged homes.
- They were also more likely to use informal childcare (40% v 31%), mainly from grandparents and other relatives and friends.
Screen use
- 72% of parents said their nine-month-olds spent some time watching television, videos or screens every day. On average, children who watched screens typically did so for an average of 41 minutes a day, however 7% of babies had more than two hours of screen time per day and 28% had none at all.
- Children of the 2020s is one of the first and largest studies to measure screen time in infancy.
Play and language development
- At nine months, those who often played turn-taking games, like peek-a-boo, with their caregivers understood five more words, on average, than babies who did these things least. Similarly, those who were read to several times a day understood four more words, and babies who engaged in frequent physical play understood three more words, on average.
- While the researchers caution they do not yet know whether these babies that understand more words at nine months will continue to progress more quickly, the findings are in line with other evidence that play in infancy and early childhood can improve long term language and cognitive development.
Access to healthcare services
- 24% of parents reported they had had trouble getting an appointment with a GP in the past 12 months, and 19% had had problems accessing a health visitor.
- More than a quarter of mothers (26%) had used breastfeeding support services since their baby was born, with 13% paying for breastfeeding support.
Covid-19
- 14% of mothers had had a confirmed or suspected Covid-19 infection during their pregnancy. Between birth and age nine months, two in five babies (41%) and more than half of their parents/carers (57%) had been infected with Covid-19.
- 74% of primary caregivers had at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine, and 37% of mothers had had a dose during pregnancy.
Study director, Professor Pasco Fearon (UCL Psychology & Language Sciences and the Centre for Family Research at the University of Cambridge), said: “We are extremely excited to unveil these first findings from the landmark Children of the 2020s study, the first new national study of babies to be launched since the millennium. These vital new insights reveal the dramatic shifts in our society over that time, with fathers taking a greater role in parenting and parents more likely to be balancing caring responsibilities with work and parental leave.
“As the first post-Covid study of families with babies, Children of the 2020s shows the many challenges parents are now facing as they deal with rising costs, health and mental health difficulties, and issues accessing public services. There are, however, very encouraging signs of resilience, with parents showing how engaged they are with creating a healthy home learning environment for their children, spending a substantial amount of time interacting positively with their babies and helping to develop their early language skills.”
A Department for Education spokesperson said: "The department commissioned this research to better understand early childhood development factors which will help shape policy decisions. We are encouraged by many parents engaging in activities like reading and play, recognising its importance in early development.
“Understanding the pressures many households are under, we've expanded free school meal eligibility several times since 2010, to more groups of children than any other Government over the past century. This is in addition to offering record financial support averaging £3,300 per household, implementing our transformational childcare reforms, increasing the National Living Wage, and providing help for households with food, energy and other essential costs."
Children of the 2020s is the latest in the UK’s rich portfolio of national cohort studies, joining long-running studies of people born in 1946, 1958, 1970, 1989-90 and 2000-02, all of which are based at UCL.
- Findings from wave 1 of the Children of the 2020s (Cot20s) longitudinal study, published by the Department for Education
- Children of the 2020s study website
- UCL Centre for Longitudinal Studies
- IOE, UCL’s Faculty of Education and Society
METHOD OF RESEARCH
Observational study
SUBJECT OF RESEARCH
People
ARTICLE TITLE
Children of the 2020s: first survey of families at age 9 months
ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE
30-Nov-2023
Early body contact develops premature babies' social skills
IMAGE:
WIBKE JONAS
view moreCREDIT: ULF SIRBORN
Skin-to-skin contact between parent and infant during the first hours after a very premature birth helps develop the child's social skills. This is according to a new study published in JAMA Network Open by researchers from Karolinska Institutet and others. The study also shows that fathers may play a more important role than previous research has shown.
In current practice, very premature babies are usually placed in an incubator to keep them warm and to stabilize them during the first hours after birth. In the “Immediate parent-infant skin-to-skin study” (IPISTOSS), 91 premature babies born at 28 to 33 weeks were randomized to either traditional care in an incubator or immediate skin-to-skin contact with one of the parents. The study has generated several results that show, among other things, that immediate skin-to-skin contact is safe for babies and beneficial for their cardiorespiratory stabilization and temperature maintenance, and that it is perceived as valuable by the parents.
Now, as part of this study, the researchers have also studied the social development at four months of age of 71 of these premature babies. The children were randomly assigned to receive either standard care in an incubator or to receive care resting on one of their parents' breasts, either the mother's or the father's, for the first six hours after birth.
"What is new about our study is that we also allowed the fathers to have skin-to-skin contact immediately after the birth. In most previous studies, it is the mother who is the primary caregiver, but in our study it was the fathers who had the most skin-to-skin contact," says Wibke Jonas, midwife, senior lecturer and associate professor at Karolinska Institutet's Department of Women's and Children's Health, as well as research leader and last author of the study.
"The study has identified fathers as a previously untapped resource that really has an important function in having immediate skin-to-skin contact with their infant if the mother is not available," says Siri Lilliesköld, PhD student at the same department and specialist nurse in neonatal care, and first author of the study.
After four months, the social interaction between mother and infant was filmed and assessed by two psychologists who did not know which infant had received early skin-to-skin contact and which had not.
The quality of the interaction was measured according to the Parent-Child Early Relational Assessment (PCERA) scale, where different elements are graded between one and five, with one being cause for concern and five being very good quality.
The infants who received immediate skin-to-skin contact had significantly better results in a subscale measuring the infant's communicative and social skills. On the five-point scale, their average score was closer to four, while the infants cared for according to current practice were just above three.
"What you could see was that the infants in the skin-to-skin group had slightly better communication skills, they were a bit more social and happier," says Wibke Jonas.
Premature babies have developmental challenges as they grow up and need a lot of support. Even though medical developments have come a long way, the care of these babies still needs to be developed, the researchers say.
"If we combine the immediate medical care of the very premature babies with a relatively simple intervention such as skin-to-skin contact, it has effects on the infants social skills," says Jonas Wibke and continues.
“Previous studies have shown that premature babies perform slightly poorer when socially interacting, for example, they do not give as clear signals in the interaction with their mothers. The closeness between babies and their parents at birth may therefore stimulate later interaction and thus the development of the infant.”
The benefits of immediate skin-to-skin contact are so clear that both Wibke Jonas and Siri Lilliesköld believe it should be introduced now in Swedish neonatal care. And this work is already underway, they say.
'We have worked very actively to minimize separation between infants and parents in general, and now we have the evidence to do the same with these very premature babies,” says Siri Lilliesköld.
The research team will continue to report on the development of the infants at 12 and 24 months.
The study is a collaboration between researchers from Karolinska Institutet and the University Hospital of Stavanger, Norway, and the University of Turku, Finland. The research was funded by, among others, the Swedish Research Council, Region Stockholm and Stiftelsen Barnavård. The researchers declare that there are no conflicts of interest.
Publication: "Skin-to-Skin Contact at Birth for Very Preterm Infants and Mother-Infant Interaction Quality at 4 Months - A Secondary Analysis of the IPISTOSS Randomized Clinical Trial", Siri Lilliesköld, Karoline Lode-Kolz, Siren Rettedal, Johanna Lindstedt, Agnes Linnér, Hanne Markhus Pike, Sari Ahlqvist-Björkroth, Ulrika Ådén, Wibke Jonas. JAMA Network Open, online November 30, 2023, doi: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2023.44469
JOURNAL
JAMA Network Open
METHOD OF RESEARCH
Randomized controlled/clinical trial
SUBJECT OF RESEARCH
People
ARTICLE TITLE
Skin-to-Skin Contact at Birth for Very Preterm Infants and Mother-Infant Interaction Quality at 4 Months - A Secondary Analysis of the IPISTOSS Randomized Clinical Trial
ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE
30-Nov-2023
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