Early childhood education and care: What effect on life chances?

Recent research has revealed that there are inconsistencies and inequalities in childhood education and care throughout the UK. Dave Hancock highlights some of the key findings

The importance of self-compassion for health visitors' wellbeing

This article presents an extended literature review, undertaken to understand the significance of self-compassion for health professionals' wellbeing and its relevance for the health visiting workforce. The review showed that self-compassion reduces compassion fatigue, burnout, anxiety, stress and depression. Further, self-compassionate employees are more compassionate towards colleagues and patients, and compassionate practice enhances staff wellbeing. Organisational support for wellbeing increases staff members' sense of worth, resulting in improved ownership of their own wellbeing, and group interventions in particular foster self-compassionate work cultures. The review concludes that self-compassion enhances staff wellbeing and recommends that all NHS staff should be provided with the tools to prevent compassion fatigue and burnout.

Providing effective lactation care: The Merton NHS Specialist Breastfeeding Clinic

The aim of this review was to assess the impact of an NHS specialist breastfeeding clinic staffed by International Board Certified Lactation Consultants, and to identify whether it improves breastfeeding outcomes and duration. This retrospective clinical review evaluated data from consultations at the Merton Specialist Breastfeeding Clinic. The data from each consultation forms the basis of the analysis. In the majority of cases (76%; n=56), the clinician findings differed from the mother's presenting concerns. This highlights the importance of specialist care to correctly identify issues and underlying causes. The majority (83%) of infants in this cohort were receiving some mother's own milk beyond 6 months. Women who faced complex breastfeeding challenges reached their breastfeeding goals with the support of specialist lactation care.

Barriers to delivering effective dental health promotion

Bethany Boddy explores the health visitor role in oral health promotion, the evidence supporting effective interventions and barriers to embedding oral health promotion in practice

Research roundup: December 2021

In this section, a range of brief synopses of recently published articles that may be of interest to health visitors is presented. The aim of this roundup is to provide an overview, rather than a detailed summary, of the research papers selected. Should you wish to look at any of the papers in more detail, a full reference is provided.

The influence of the health visitor

Crystal Oldman discusses why health visitors need to be able to tell their stories in a way that demonstrates their knowledge and skills, and the real impact they have on the communities they serve

NEWS

Study warns of the economic effects of the increase in obesity worldwide, with costs projected to double in Spain and increase 19-fold in India over the next 40 years

How has Covid-19 affected health visiting teams?

Based on data collected through Freedom of Information requests, researchers at University College London generated a detailed picture of the effects of the pandemic on health visiting services in England. Dave Hancock reveals some highlights