“I didn’t think that looking after myself well was part of the health of my son.”
Combining her scientific research with her personal experiences as a mother, Dr Nisreen Alwan explains we can support healthier babies, through supporting healthier parents.
3 in 5 women in the UK will have at least 2 children in their lifetime. Current health practices treat each pregnancy as a separate event, but Dr Alwan’s groundbreaking work is connecting the dots to track health across families as a whole.
For Dr Alwan, pregnancy is almost too late. Instead, we need to focus on the preconception period ahead of pregnancy which shapes the physical and mental health of the parents, and so too the future health of their children.
But the preconception period of a second child often comes during a period when parent’s lives are completely turned upside down with caring for their first baby – new parents have radically different patterns of sleep and exercise, and the new baby often forces parents to completely change their working habits, hobbies and social networks.
However, the period between children is also a key window of opportunity, as it’s a time when people have intensive, repeated contact with health systems.
In the study described, Dr Alwan reviewed health records for about 15,000 women. Half of new mothers gained weight, which is in turn linked to their children being overweight or obese when they start primary school. Her research is finding new ways we can support new parents and health visitors to access local support and resources, and so improve both new parent’s own health and the health of their children.
Dr Nisreen Alwan is Associate Professor in Public Health at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Southampton. Find her on Twitter https://twitter.com/Dr2NisreenAlwan
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This AMSlive talk was filmed on 23 January 2020 at the annual Helix Group reception, hosted by award-winning science journalist, Linda Geddes. Find out more about the Helix Group:
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