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Special deliveries
for Millennium Babies
The Health Promotion
Agency for Northern Ireland today announced its initiative
for marking the twenty first century - a very special project,
'Millennium Babies', which highlights the availability of
information for parents to help give their babies the healthiest
possible start to their lives.
During the month
of January the Health Promotion Agency will be giving the
first 2,000 babies born in 2000 a special limited edition
pack to welcome them into the new millennium. Every maternity
unit in Northern Ireland is supporting the project and most
have already been giving out the packs to babies born so far
in this special year.
Speaking during
the launch of the initiative GMTV celebrity, Dr Hilary Jones,
highlighted the importance of credible unbiased health information.
He said: "This is a project which focuses on giving babies
the best start in life. The wide range of information contained
in the pack will hopefully encourage mums and dads to make
healthy choices for their children.
"There are so
many things to think about when a baby arrives in the household.
This pack will help new parents when they have to make important
decisions which need to be made very quickly after the birth,
such as, getting baby immunised at the appropriate times."
The pack comes
in the form of a very useful changing bag that holds information
for new mums and babies. It includes advice about nutrition,
breastfeeding, weaning, immunisation and safety. It also contains
a special souvenir millennium bib and a height chart which
has helpful tips on what to watch out for when your baby is
more active, such as, being able to reach objects that may
be dangerous.
Dr Brian Gaffney,
Chief Executive of the Health Promotion Agency, said: "All
packs have a questionnaire attached to them and we hope the
mothers will complete these. The information collated from
the questionnaires could form the basis for developing future
work on promoting family health. This initiative gives parents
and children an opportunity to participate in the development
of future health information and could lead to new resources
on a range of health issues which have been identified as
being helpful."
Although this
is a special one-off initiative there will be the opportunity
to keep in contact with the babies and to watch their development
through the *Millennium
Babies website. The address is: www.bornintheyear2k.com. This
site has been specially developed to support the project and
has a wealth of health information that can be accessed by
parents and children.
For those who
will not have access to the special packs, information contained
in them can also be obtained from Health and Social Services
Boards and Trusts, GPs' surgeries, pharmacies and organisations
such as ROSPA (The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents).
END
*The
Agency's Millennium Babies website is no longer available.
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