A trial on healthy visitors funded by the Princess of Wales has produced “overwhelmingly” positive results.

Early Childhood Center – A Foundation Established by Kate Exploring the importance of early childhood for adult development – Funded a study to test a new infant assessment system.

Health visitors from both sites were trained to use the Alarm Distress Scale for Infants (ADBB), which uses indicators such as facial expressions and activity levels to understand how babies are relating to their parents.

Sky News exclusively spoke to Health Visitor Hull who participated in the 10-month study.

Rachel Ramage, one of the team involved, said: “Babies really communicate, they are naturally attracted to us and they really want to bring you into their world.”

ADBB health visitors are taught to observe how babies interact with their environment.

“We try to look at the babies’ eye contact, their facial expressions, their level of body movement and their vocalizations,” Ms Ramage said.

This information can help health visitors identify problems and provide support to parents.

We see seven-week-old Marie going for a routine checkup. His relationship with his mother has always been great and is clearly thriving.

“I’m worried I might accidentally hurt her.”

But adjusting to life with a newborn isn’t always easy. We met one mother, Natasha Green, who said the early days were a “struggle”.

Ms Green said: “I suffered from the worst postpartum depression and I called my health visitor numerous times thinking I was leaving, that I would accidentally hurt her and that I was not fit to do this.” , Emily.

Thanks to support from health visitors, Ms Green and her daughter are doing well.

The Princess of Wales learns about ADBB during a visit Denmark 2022.

She funded the trial through the Early Childhood Centre, the first time she has provided financial support for early years work.

Researchers at the University of Oxford evaluated the results.

“The results are very positive,” said Jane Barlow, a professor of evidence-based intervention and policy evaluation at the university.

“I think this really enhances the tools that health visitors already have, allowing them to bring the baby back to the center of it all,”

The next phase of the project involves expanding the trial to several new locations.

But the bigger hope is that the system will be used by all health visitors in the UK.

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The preliminary results are good news for the princess, who hopes her work can have a real impact. When she returns to work, her early life may become a priority.

Although Kate is still on leave, we’re told she’s been “kept in the loop” on the progress of her projects.