All Babies Count: Why Babyhood Matters

PSYCHOANALYTIC SECTION OF THE ICP LIMITED
presents
The Squiggle Foundation and NSPCC
All Babies Count: Why Babyhood Matters
A day of discussion focused around an acclaimed five - part series of short documentaries “Breakdown or Breakthrough?
Pregnancy, birth and the first eighteen months of life”,  led by Dr Amanda Jones and Angela Joyce (director Amy Rose). The documentaries explore the effects of perinatal breakdowns on babies, parents and the professionals who work with them (including midwives, social workers, health visitors, mental health professionals).

Highlighting the crucial issue of perinatal mental illness the NSPCC’s All  Babies  Count campaign  underlines  the
need  for  improved  and  earlier support for parents. It calls for the mental health of mothers and babies to be given the same priority as their physical health. The campaign report suggested that every  year in the UK up to 200,000 babies under a year old are living in households in which substance misuse, domestic violence and mental illness are  real  problems.  With  research  suggesting  that  up  to  twenty  per  cent  of  parents  become  emotionally  unwell  during  the  perinatal  period,  with  an inevitable impact upon the emotional, neurological and cognitive development
of  the baby,  the  question  of  how  to  help  such  parents  and  their  babies  is  a pressing public health concern.

'Breakdown or Breakthrough?:Pregnancy, Birth and the First 18 Months of Life'

The five films, and subsequent discussion, will cover the following topics:

• The strain on clinicians working with babies and parents who are suffering, and why communication between professionals can break down.
• The emotional experience of being a baby - how this both gets revived in practitioners and, for the baby, is profoundly affected by the parental states of mind.
• The way in which violence in the parental couple can injure the bond between a mother and baby.
• How fathers can be forgotten - with professionals at risk of not thinking about the father’s emotional needs.
• The emerging findings that suggest a baby’s brain development is to some extent relationally co-created and influenced by the emotional environment in which the baby is living.