The new Healthy Families BC/Pregnancy & Parenting website offers a range of resources to support pregnancy and parenting.  Katie Graham has been the PHAC Program Consultant working on this collaboration with the BC Ministry of Health to support parents.  Four CPNP projects, including coordinators and participants, took part in the focus group reviews of the breastfeeding and skin-to-skin videos. The website has focused initially on planning a pregnancy; care during pregnancy, labour and birth; and postpartum baby & toddler care.  Further resources are in development and will be added to expand the website to support parents as their children move through the stages of childhood.

Topics already available include:

• Planning a Pregnancy: Pregnancy; Labour & Birth; Preparing for Your Newborn; Self-Care for New Moms
• Babies (0-12 months): Feeding; Baby Care; Baby Health; Baby Development; Baby Safety; New Parents
• Toddlers (12-13 months):  Healthy Eating; Toddler Care; Toddler Health; Toddler Development; Toddler Safety; Parenting a Toddler.

The site also offers links to downloadable resources for families:

• Baby’s Best Chance Parents’ Handbook of Pregnancy and Baby Care
• Toddler’s First Steps: A Best Chance Guide to Parenting Your 6- to 36-Month-Old Child
• Child Health Passport 

Registering with HealthyFamilies BC gives access to professional nutritional tools such as:

• Breastfeeding Buddy
• Sodium Sense
• Shopping Sense
• Sugary Drink Sense 

In the Pregnancy & Birth section, a very popular article is the discussion tool, Video About Labour and Birth, which outlines the 4 stages of labour, allows viewers to watch and learn what happens, and talks about some of the physical and emotional feelings one might experience during each stage.  Other articles cover diet and nutrition during pregnancy, morning sickness, foetal development, and videos on planning a pregnancy and about women’s experience of the early days with a new baby.

The Babies section offers up-to-date advice and information to help parents through the first 12 months with their child, with articles on: bonding, home safety, crying, lactation, nutrition,  routine tests and procedures, and physical activity for babies in their first year, along with a video about the first 6 to 8 weeks at home with a baby.  For example, Creating a Healthy Emotional Attachment provides simple steps parents can take to help ensure a close connection with their baby.

The Toddlers section includes information on: immunization, nutrition and dental health, safety indoors and out, positive parenting, the value of play, helping to develop healthy sleep habits and preventing picky eating in toddlers.  Encouraging your toddler to play provides a range of suggestions for parents to help them in offering play choices for toddlers that engage imagination and interactivity between parent and child.

The website provides Facebook interactivity for users of the website to engage in discussion on pregnancy and early childhood topics, as well as links to blogs by HealthyFamiliesBC, registered dieticians, and other health professionals for further reference. 

Click here to access this great resource.