"We follow families from pregnancy until the child is around three years old. They will receive guidance and support from the health visitor to establish healthy habits and routines very early on. We focus not only on food and meals, but also on the child's movement, screen use, sleeping habits and family stability. Previous efforts have primarily focused on diet and physical activity, but we have a broader perspective on prevention," says senior researcher Trine Pagh Pedersen.
Participating parents will receive additional visits from the nurse both during and after pregnancy, additional phone calls from the nurse and access to videos to guide parents in different situations, such as breastfeeding.
"The main focus of the project will be to intensify and qualify the already existing work of health nurses in guiding parents in relation to factors that influence healthy weight development. Health nurses must be trained to support and guide parents so that they become better at understanding their child's signals, for example in relation to sleep, agitation, crying and eating," says Trine Pagh Pedersen.
The researchers will also follow a control group consisting of 1,600 other children and their parents who will be offered to participate in the existing healthcare programme.
The programme is then evaluated by comparing the two groups of children and parents to see if there are differences in the children's weight development and well-being.
In addition to this impact evaluation, the researchers will also evaluate the process and implementation of the programme, and health economists from DaCHE - Danish Centre of Health Economics, University of Southern Denmark, will examine the socio-economic costs and benefits of the programme.
