Babies and children’s health and wellbeing

This chapter outlines a manifesto for improving the health of babies and young children and foregrounds the role of Early Childhood Education and Care practitioners in achieving this goal. The content outlines my motivation for wanting to encourage all of us to be aware of what we can do individually, within society as well as including key messages for government. I am inspired by Margaret McMillan’s (more about her later in the chapter) quote where she urges nursery nurseries ‘to educate each child as if he were your own’ I have adapted this quote and I urge every adult working with and caring for babies and young children to consider how you can make a difference to each child’s health, as if he or she were your own child. And in this chapter, I outline how giving babies and children access to high quality early childhood education and care can help to support and promote their physical and mental health, as well as improving the wellbeing of parents and families. Whenever we are considering contemporary issues, casting a glance back at history helps to understand why and how situations have emerged, so the next section gives a brief historical view of child health and summarises key events during the previous century.