The research project Infant Health focuses on how parents can support the child’s development in the short and long term.

Infants develop in close interaction with their parents. Being a parent of a little child can involve great feelings of happiness, but also sometimes experiences of powerlessness and worry.

Parents of infants can feel overwhelmed and insecure. It can be difficult to sort through the many kinds of information available on the internet and via social media, for example. Many parents are left with doubts about how best to support their child’s development and how they can help the child if it has difficulty regulating sleep, eating and crying.

Community health nurses have a nursing qualification and are specially educated in child development and health. Community health nurses visit all Danish parents of infants.

The collaboration between the community health nurse and the parents focuses on strengthening the parents’ possibilities for supporting the child’s development. In the collaboration, the parents and the community health nurse can gain an increased understanding and knowledge of the individual child.

In the newly developed VIPP-PUF method, a group of community health nurses are trained to give parents feedback on their child’s developmental needs.

The feedback is based on the community health nurse’s analysis of video recordings of the child with a parent in everyday situations, e.g. during play and eating.

Read more about the VIPP-PUF initiative here.

Parents’ participation in the research project

Parents’ knowledge of their children is essential for us to develop appropriate methods to support children’s development and health, as well as prevent mental health problems.

In Infant Health, we ask parents to answer questions about their child’s development at approximately 9 months, 18 months and 24 months.

In this way, parents participating in the project help provide the research with knowledge about infants’ development and health for the benefit of other infants and their parents in the future. In addition, they contribute new knowledge for the benefit of the future work of community health nurses.

How do parents perceive the VIPP-PUF initiative?

By means of a process evaluation, Infant Health also explores what is helpful from a parent’s perspective, including the parents’ experiences of participating in a VIPP-PUF course.

In this way, the project fills a gap in existing knowledge about parents’ perspectives in the prevention of mental health problems and unhealthy weight development in early childhood.

Read more about the process evaluation here.

Who can participate in the research project?

Parents who live in one of the 16 project municipalities (Albertslund, Allerød, Dragør, Egedal, Fredensborg, Gladsaxe, Glostrup, Herlev, Hillerød, Høje-Taastrup, Kalundborg, Køge, Rudersdal and Vejle) can participate until November 2023 if suggested by the community health nurse during the home visit when the child is 9–10 months old. 

Participation is voluntary, and participants can withdraw at any time without it affecting the healthcare they normally receive.