Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jan 17, 2026

Assessment of Child Anthropometry in a Large Epidemiologic Study
09:36

Assessment of Child Anthropometry in a Large Epidemiologic Study

Published on: February 2, 2017

27.7K

Prenatal and Infant Reports and Child Protection Involvement: A Longitudinal Cohort Study

Miriam J Maclean1,2, Fernando Lima1, Stephanie Taplin3

  • 1Australian Centre for Child Protection, University of South Australia, Adelaide, SA, Australia.

Child Maltreatment
|September 19, 2025
PubMed

Insights

Prenatal child protection reports in Australia increase infant removal likelihood. Early intervention strategies need examination to improve child safety and family support outcomes.

Area of Science:

  • Child welfare research
  • Public health policy
  • Paediatric social work

Background:

  • Infants in Australia face the highest rates of child protection involvement.
  • Limited understanding exists regarding the outcomes for infants reported prenatally to child protection services.
  • Existing policies for prenatal planning and support show varying impacts.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate child protection pathways for infants with prenatal and birth reports.
  • To analyze factors influencing out-of-home care removal and reunification for these infants.
  • To identify jurisdictional variations in child protection interventions for prenatal reports.

Main Methods:

  • Utilized cross-jurisdictional, individual-record data from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (2012-2018).
  • Employed Cox regression analyses to examine predictors of removal and reunification.
  • Focused on infants with prenatal and infant-related child protection reports.

Main Results:

  • Infants with prenatal reports were significantly more likely to be removed into out-of-home care (Hazard Ratio = 2.29).
  • Earlier pregnancy reports did not correlate with decreased removal rates.
  • Significant jurisdictional disparities were observed in removal and reunification rates.
  • Aboriginal infants experienced higher rates of prenatal reports, removals, and lower reunification rates.

Conclusions:

  • Prenatal reporting is a significant risk factor for infant removal from families.
  • Current prenatal interventions may require re-evaluation for effectiveness.
  • Addressing jurisdictional and Indigenous-specific disparities is crucial for equitable child protection.
  • Improving prenatal support services could enhance the likelihood of children remaining safely at home.

Keywords:
child protective servicesfoster careinfants

More Related Videos

Assessment and Evaluation of the High Risk Neonate: The NICU Network Neurobehavioral Scale19:15

Assessment and Evaluation of the High Risk Neonate: The NICU Network Neurobehavioral Scale

Published on: August 25, 2014

87.6K
A Novel Experimental and Analytical Approach to the Multimodal Neural Decoding of Intent During Social Interaction in Freely-behaving Human Infants11:14

A Novel Experimental and Analytical Approach to the Multimodal Neural Decoding of Intent During Social Interaction in Freely-behaving Human Infants

Published on: October 4, 2015

11.4K

Related Concept Videos

Longitudinal Research02:20

Longitudinal Research

Sometimes we want to see how people change over time, as in studies of human development and lifespan. When we test the same group of individuals repeatedly over an extended period of time, we are conducting longitudinal research. Longitudinal research is a research design in which data-gathering is administered repeatedly over an extended period of time. For example, we may survey a group of individuals about their dietary habits at age 20, retest them a decade later at age 30, and then again...
13.1K
Longitudinal Studies01:26

Longitudinal Studies

Longitudinal studies are also widely used in other medical and social science fields. For instance, in cardiovascular research, they can monitor patients' health over decades to identify risk factors for heart disease, such as high cholesterol or smoking, and evaluate the long-term effectiveness of preventive measures. Similarly, in mental health studies, researchers might follow individuals from adolescence into adulthood to understand the development and progression of conditions like...
481
Socioemotional Development during Infancy01:30

Socioemotional Development during Infancy

Socio-emotional development in infancy is primarily shaped by early emotional responses and social connections, with temperament playing a central role. Temperament refers to the consistent patterns in an individual's emotional and behavioral responses, observable even in infancy. By examining temperament, researchers can better understand an infant's unique ways of interacting with the world, influencing subsequent personality and socio-emotional growth.
Primary Temperament Types
433
Observational Studies01:11

Observational Studies

Observational studies are a type of analytical study where researchers observe events without any interventions. In other words, the researcher does not influence the response variable or the experiment's outcome.
There are three types of observational studies – Prospective, retrospective, and cross-sectional.
Prospective Study
Prospective studies, also known as longitudinal or cohort studies, are carried out by collecting future data from groups sharing similar characteristics. One...
10.7K
Prevalence and Incidence01:08

Prevalence and Incidence

In statistical epidemiology and health sciences, two essential metrics—prevalence and incidence—are fundamental for understanding disease dynamics within a population. These measures enable public health officials, epidemiologists, and researchers to assess the burden of diseases, allocate resources effectively, and design impactful public health policies and interventions.
Prevalence indicates the proportion of individuals in a population who have a specific disease or health...
1.5K
Cross-Sectional Research01:50

Cross-Sectional Research

In cross-sectional research, a researcher compares multiple segments of the population at the same time. If they were interested in people's dietary habits, the researcher might directly compare different groups of people by age. Instead of following a group of people for 20 years to see how their dietary habits changed from decade to decade, the researcher would study a group of 20-year-old individuals and compare them to a group of 30-year-old individuals and a group of 40-year-old...
12.4K