The Scottish Government wants to ensure that all children have the best possible start to life, are ready to succeed and live longer, healthier lives.
To help achieve this, an Infant Nutrition Framework for Action has been developed, which is aimed at a wide variety of organisations with a role in improving maternal and infant nutrition in Scotland.
This paper summarises scientific research about brain development in adolescence and in particular, emphasises the changes to the prefrontal cortex of the frontal lobes which appear to be especially critical for mature decision making and impulse control. Sections within the paper address changes in the brain during adolescence at the cellular level; describes adolescent brain development from the perspective of new techniques now available for studying living brains; and, in the final section, summarises knowledge about how these brain changes may affect thinking and behaviour.
Leaflet whose purpose is to support women with epilepsy by giving them a better understanding of their condition. It offers information and advice on matters which may affect women in their lives such as contraception, family planning, pregnancy and motherhood.
Pre-course reading handout for the STRADA one-day module, Substance Misuse in Pregnancy.
This paper was published in February 2000 as CASEpaper 34 by the Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion at the London School of Economics. It was written by Sheldon Danziger and Jane Waldfogel and is based on a Conference held in 1998 at Columbia University which looked at the investments required in child development to break the cycle of poverty. It concentrates on disadvantaged children and their families from pregnancy to adolescence.
The purpose of this review is to summarize policy research findings in the area of maternal prenatal substance abuse to (1) inform and advance this field, (2) identify future research needs, (3) inform policy making and (4) identify implications for policy. As a review, this is a systematic analysis of existing data (findings) on maternal drug use during pregnancy for determining the best policy among the alternatives for dealing with drug using mothers and their children.
This in-depth study explores the motivations for ‘planned’ teenage pregnancy in England. The findings have important implications for the Teenage Pregnancy Strategy and the increasing political agenda on young people and health. The report is based on 51 in-depth interviews, undertaken among teenagers in six relatively disadvantaged locations who reported their pregnancy as 'planned' (41 women and 10 men).
Report reviewing the second year of the implementation of a pilot Nurse Family Partnership (NFP) programme in ten sites in England. The programme is an evidence-based nurse home visiting programme developed in the USA, intended to improve the health, well-being and self-sufficiency of young first-time parents and their children.
Parents’ expectations and experiences of pregnancy, birth and the first few months of parenting are presented as part of the Growing Up in Scotland study (GUS) longitudinal research project aimed at tracking the lives of a cohort of Scottish children from the early years, through childhood and beyond.
Report of a study which aimed to determine what impact the dependence on self-report of smoking status during pregnancy has on both access to smoking cessation services and the accuracy of smoking prevalence figures in the pregnant population of Scotland.