Welcome to the World is an 8-week antenatal programme which aims to support expectant parents by improving parental wellbeing, increasing attunement and bonding to their baby, and developing knowledge and skills in breastfeeding and practical care.
This report describes outcomes of the programme using data collected between 2014 and 2015 from 111 parents-to-be and 17 Parent Group Leaders at 28 venues across the UK. The report focuses on parent-to-be wellbeing and attachment, parental feedback on programme content and delivery and Parent Group Leader feedback on referral, delivery and implementation issues.
The findings show that the wellbeing of parents-to-be increased significantly during the course, and their wellbeing scores were considerably above the norm for adults in the UK. Focusing on attachment, both mothers and fathers-to-be showed significant increases in attachment scores by the end of the programme.
If you would like to find out more about our Welcome to the World training, click here.
Acknowledgements: We are very grateful to Kate Kidd-Rossiter and Yongjiao Yang for their joint work in undertaking the analysis in this report. An earlier pilot evaluation on the Welcome to the World programme was undertaken by Sean Grant, and we are grateful to him for the excellent start in evaluating the programme.