New parents to get extra support from £1.5m project

The government-funded project aims to offer new parents additional support through activities, workshops and advice

A £1.5m project to provide specialist support to new parents during the first 1,001 days of their babies’ lives is being piloted in Leicester.

The Best Start for Life programme aims to offer activities, workshops and advice to families and is due to run until May 2025.

A new digital antenatal health and wellbeing contact will also be available as part of the pilot project.

Leicester city deputy mayor Sarah Russell said the project would provide additional support and services to families.

According to leading health experts, the care given in the first 1,001 days of a child’s life - from conception to age two - has more influence on their future than at any other time in their life.

The Leicester pilot project - funded by the Department of Health and Social Care - is being run by Leicester City Council, Leicester Partnership NHS Trust (LPT), University Hospitals Leicester (UHL), and local charities Heads Up Leicester and Leicester Mammas.

The council said the new digital antenatal health and wellbeing contact, which would offer access to advice and information to help with a happy and healthy pregnancy, would be available to all pregnant women in the city, in addition to four free face-to-face antenatal sessions.

It said University Hospitals Leicester and Leicester Mammas were recruiting and training parents with experience of breastfeeding to become volunteer hospital breastfeeding peer supporters and Heads Up Leicester would run therapeutic playgroups.

'Innovative collaboration'

Sam Newby, family services manager for LPT, said: "Our newly formed team of professionals are eagerly prepared to offer support to our families during their first 1,001 critical days and at the same time complement our existing service offer."

Lead infant feeding midwife at UHL, Ann Raja, said the pilot project had allowed its breastfeeding support programme, which is available at Leicester General Hospital, to be extended to Leicester Royal Infirmary.

She said it also allowed her team to work with Leicester Mammas to offer breastfeeding peer support telephone calls for new mothers in the first few days they are at home with their new baby.

Sally Etheridge, from Leicester Mammas, said: "We have been offering breastfeeding peer support to families for many years.

"Having breastfeeding peer supporters on the wards and embedded within maternity services means that during the crucial time around the baby’s birth, new mothers and parents can have unhurried time to ask questions and get the support they need to start breastfeeding."

Lindsay Woodward, chief executive of Heads Up Leicester, said the project was an "innovative collaboration", adding: "This investment in testing out new ways of working together will bring new opportunities for families to receive care, advice and support from a range of organisations."

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