Born to move: The importance of early physical activity and interaction

The Born to Move' project was initiated in response to health visitor concerns that babies with increasingly sedentary lives were achieving their developmental milestones later. Anecdotal evidence suggested that increasing numbers of children were starting school before achieving the expected developmental levels locally. The aim was to maximise the impact of health visitors in Kent, to enable parents and carers to have a greater understanding of the importance of their vital role in encouraging child development. Consistent promotion of key messages, including the value of awake tummy time in infants and of interactive play was achieved through multi-agency workshops for all health visiting and children centre teams. Parents were also supported by a leaflet given by health visitors at new birth visits, posters in all children's centres and access to a specifically designed free smartphone app. The intervention was initially introduced in one district. Measurable outcomes were obtained through collation of existing one year review data. The number of babies who had crawled in the first year increased from 30 per cent (baseline data), to 94 per cent a year after the project started. A report to commissioners led to extension of the project across Kent using the 'train the trainer' approach.