Research round-up

Pregnancy and COVID-19

New Zealand’s Ministry of Health has updated its advice on COVID-19 vaccines for people who are pregnant and is encouraging you to get a COVID-19 vaccine as part of Group 3 at any stage of your pregnancy. Evidence from the large number of pregnant people who have already been vaccinated globally indicates that there are no safety concerns with administering COVID-19 vaccines at any stage of pregnancy. Vaccinating during pregnancy may also be helpful for the baby, as there is evidence of antibody transfer in cord blood and breastmilk, which may offer protection to infants through passive immunity. READ MORE

The Ministry’s website has more information for those who are pregnant or breastfeeding: tinyurl.com/3fnjnss6

When breastfeeding mothers have COVID

In most countries, newborns have been separated from mothers who have tested positive for COVID. Although intended to safeguard the babies’ wellbeing, this separation can have negative health effects. New research from Sweden shows that such measures are almost always unnecessary. Looking at nearly a year’s worth of data, scientists found that a mother being COVID positive during pregnancy or at birth poses very little risk to their baby. Infants are highly unlikely to suffer ill health or an infection as a result. READ MORE

Read the article in The Conversation: tinyurl.com/sxtw3cy4

The World Health Organization’s official advice is that the benefits of breastfeeding far outweigh any potential risks of transmission of COVID-19 to babies: tinyurl.com/dz2tuww

Lockdowns lead to language learning

An unexpected benefit of more of us being at home more often is that babies and children are being exposed to all the languages spoken by family members. An international study indicates that ‘heritage’ languages were used more often during lockdown periods, and linguists confirm that speaking heritage languages at home can help children grow into bilingual or multilingual adults. The UK-based research was conducted with a thousand parents. READ MORE

Reports on the study: Stuff: tinyurl.com/psa2hcr3

The New York Times: tinyurl.com/myappm5t

From the research team’s blog: tinyurl.com/4rsx27xs

How to make the most of bath time

Bath time is a great time to begin teaching your child about the water and water safety.

The golden rule during bath time is constant supervision. Nearly all drownings in under-fives could have been avoided with active supervision.

Here are some top tips for making bath time a fun learning experience for your child:

» Make it FUN! – this allows your child to enjoy the environment.

» Allow them to splash around – this lets them get used to water splashing around them. » Let them feel how the water reacts – swirl water around them. They will enjoy the sensation of the water moving. » Slowly dribble water over their head and increase the amount of water you pour until they are happy with the feeling of water on their face.

» Don’t worry about water on their face – your child will be safe as long as their head is above the water throughout the bath. » As your child gets older, get them to blow bubbles in the bath water – this lets them learn that they can’t breathe under the water (an important skill). » When they can move independently, allow them to move around the bath and understand how the water moves around them.

If you would like to teach your child these vital life skills, more tips and tricks are available from splashsave.org. When you buy a pack, you will receive a 70-page book, waterproof sheets to take to the pool and certificates for your child as they complete the pack.

Parents Centre works with Water Safety New Zealand and SplashSave to reduce drownings in New Zealand through parent education.

Income Protection – what are Kiwis missing?

By Pat Sellars

Average house prices in many urban centres in New Zealand have skyrocketed past $1,000,000, so it’s a no brainer to insure your home. But what’s your income actually worth? Say you’re 35, earning $75,000 a year, assuming no changes to your income over the rest of your working life (obviously there will be, just entertain me for a second!) you would earn $2,250,000 by retirement at 65. So it goes without saying that you need to protect your income. We haven’t even accounted for any salary increases over that time.

The Financial Services Council of New Zealand published a report in 2018 stating that only one in five Kiwis had any income insurance in place, and a large proportion of those didn’t have sufficient cover in place. Why are we getting this wrong? Your ability to earn an income is the biggest contributor to achieving your financial goals. Don’t take my word for it – I am yet to come across a financial expert who publishes advice on insurance and tells you that income protection is a waste of time. Go have a look, even at the most mainstream – The Barefoot Investor, Mary Holm – go and check them out and come back.

Here are some of the common queries I hear about income protection: “But we have ACC” – Please remember that ACC is the Accident Compensation Corporation. You are more likely to be unable to work longterm for events that do not involve accidents, like a critical illness which they do not cover. “It’s too expensive” – I tend to agree but insurance premiums are likely to be much cheaper than home insurance, so it’s a matter of prioritisation and perspective.

“Who can I trust to help?” – This is a big question and a hard one to answer. Find a financial adviser you can trust, speed-date a few, do your own research and see if they can answer your questions in ways that make sense to you. If you don’t understand them, they aren’t the right fit.

It’s as simple as prioritising insuring the things you cannot afford to do without, and income definitely has to enter that equation.

KP

Pat Sellars is a Registered Financial Adviser with a focus on Personal Risk. This means providing unique and tailored advice for clients’ Life, Health and Income insurances.

There’s an app for that

The app helping mums and mums-to-be through postnatal depression and anxiety

Dr Carrie Barber’s experience with pregnancy loss and then a preterm labour is what drove her to want to support other women who were experiencing stress or anxiety during pregnancy.

The psychologist has developed an app designed to help prevent postnatal depression and anxiety among expectant mothers, which has recently been relaunched by the University of Waikato. The Positively Pregnant app aims to help women find the support and strategies they need for positive mental health – something that Barber wishes she had had access to during pregnancy.

She saw that there was a need to provide expectant mothers with better information on the social and emotional changes that come with pregnancy, because traditionally information has focused on topics like their developing baby, what foods to eat or possible complications during pregnancy.

“Pregnancy is a time of continuous change – not just physical, but also social, emotional and psychological. There is much less information available to women about the thoughts and feelings that evolve during pregnancy,” says Dr Barber.

Dr Barber remembers blaming herself for her pregnancy loss and preterm labour, even though she hadn’t done anything wrong. And she’s not alone. Figures show that one in five women will experience high levels of anxiety and depression and about 13% of those will experience it severely enough to be diagnosed and require some form of treatment. “Part of what was hard for me was coping with uncertainty and isolation. It was 1993 and I was on bed rest. Before the age of the internet, the telephone was my only link to the world during the long days on the couch in the countryside. Some of the things that helped me were creativity and making things, and the connection with my husband. My mother also came for the first couple of weeks. I think now there are more options for connecting with people, and that can be really good for not feeling so alone.” Dr Barber explains that there are also more people talking and writing about how to handle uncertainty and lack of control. “I think some of the meditations and writing and thinking about that might have helped, and actually some of my own thinking and meditation did help at the time, when I realised that I really wasn’t in control of all the factors that might influence my pregnancy. I could do as much as I could do, but that also meant I wasn’t responsible for the things that went wrong. “I think mothers need to remember that although it is important and helpful to take care of yourself, and eat and drink and do the best you can, you aren’t in charge of everything. What you can focus on is doing the things that make you feel better, in the moment, and that is often the best way of doing what’s best for the baby, too. Assuming that what makes you feel better isn’t a whisky sour and a cigarette of course! There are just some things you have to give up for a while. “My own experience of pregnancy loss and then medical complications during pregnancy left me with an interest in supporting women who were having stressful or anxious pregnancies. I started to do this by getting specialised training and working with women clinically. That turned out to be mostly postnatal depression, because that was what people were aware of asking for help with,” she says. Dr Barber says the Positively Pregnant app is designed for anyone who is pregnant, not just those who are experiencing perinatal depression and/or anxiety. The app provides questionnaires to help women understand their thinking and decision-making styles and their strengths and values connected to parenting. It offers a ‘notes to self’ function and a gratitude log. Dr Barber says there are also tools to facilitate conversations on all sorts of topics, from how couples share chores around the home to values and financial changes. “A lot of what is in the app is things we know work from positive psychology and each of them provides women with feedback or directs them to where they can find help,” she says. “One of the advantages of an app over something like a book is that an app can be tailored to the particular needs of the mother. It can provide individualised feedback and information based on what the user enters in the questionnaires.” For example, the app contains a function to help women understand their stress – what triggers it and whether the level of stress they’re experiencing is typical or particularly high. It then provides links to information about the particular stressor and offers techniques to lower stress levels, like relaxation exercises or bodyscanning exercises. In the conversations section, the guidance on financial conversations, for example, provides links to the sorted.co.nz website, where women

can find more information on managing finances. “We’ve designed it so there is a lot of bite-sized, useful information in the app that will help mothers with both the social and emotional side of being a parent.” Dr Barber recognises that there’s a rise in anxiety and depression, but says that the reasons are still unclear. “Part of it might be the complexity of modern life, and the many roles and expectations that are there for parents. I sometimes think that pregnancy is more stressful than it used to be because of the ever-growing list of rules – things to do and not do, in the hope that they will ensure a happy and healthy baby.” While the app isn’t intended to be used by itself as treatment for clinical depression or anxiety, Barber hopes it will support the mental health services, which are stretched thin.

“Whether it’s a full-blown diagnosis or just some discomfort and doubt, it’s important that mothers know how to deal with it, so it doesn’t snowball into something worse.”

RESOURCES TO HELP

The Positively Pregnant app isn’t a treatment for anxiety or depression; it’s a set of tools and information for promoting wellbeing. If you’re experiencing anxiety or depression, there are ideas that will help, and also information about when and how to get in contact with others who might be able to provide more help. There are also resources in the community that people can access. Most cities will have a specialist perinatal mental health service, which should be available if there is a history of issues like bipolar disorder, postnatal psychosis, severe depression or anxiety.

For mild to moderate anxiety or depression, GPs can refer for four to six therapy sessions funded through primary care.

If someone has a history of sexual abuse, which can get stirred up in pregnancy and parenting, they can access therapy funded through ACC. There are also telephone counselling and support services like 1737 (free text or call), Lifeline (0800 543 354), Pregnancy Counselling Services (0800 773 462) and PlunketLine (0800 933 922). The app is available for download on Google’s Play Store or the App Store: www.positivelypregnant.org.nz

Maternal mental health

The New Zealand College of Midwives Journal reports on increasing evidence that maternal mental health screening is important in both the antenatal and postnatal periods, but that this need is not always recognised. Outcomes can include poorer health and wellbeing for children even into adulthood, and economic and health impacts for mothers. Currently in New Zealand, midwives assess women’s mental health throughout pregnancy but can only refer those with serious needs to the maternal mental health service.

READ MORE

Read the full article online: tinyurl.com/4ph5z25d

For more about the pressures felt by midwives, read this article from The Spinoff: tinyurl.com/yaspv856

Stuff reports on the Ministry of Health review into maternal mental health services: tinyurl.com/498fscsx

KP

Introducing Huggies® SlimFLEX Nappy Pants

Made for babies on the move

We get it, toddlers can be a handful! Curious, inquisitive and adventuresome, they’re ready to explore the world around them and are constantly on the move.

In fact, the average toddler moves more than you think. New research commissioned by Huggies® has revealed that babies walk almost four times the daily distance that adults in New Zealand do1, taking an average of 17,448 steps per day and covering an average distance of nearly 14km – the equivalent of nine laps of Eden Park, or climbing the Sky Tower’s 1,103 stairs almost 16 times2 .

Parents need a nappy solution for bub that is made for movement, slim-fitting and flexible. This is where New Zealand’s most trusted nappy brand comes in, with seven in ten Kiwi parents regularly using Huggies®3 nappies. Huggies® Nappy Pants with new SlimFLEX technology are now 25% thinner and 70% more flexible. It’s Huggies® most advanced moisture lock technology yet with five slimline layers that instantly absorb moisture and lock it away from bub’s skin for superior dryness.

So why choose Huggies® SlimFLEX?

Thin and breathable

Traditional nappies can bulk and sag, and may restrict movement when toddlers start to walk and explore the world. Made with gentle ingredients with no added nasties4 , the SlimFLEX range is soft and breathable to help baby’s bottom stay dry. What’s more, the Nappy Pants are now 25% thinner5 to

reduce bulk and increase flexibility so baby can move more freely.

Increased absorbency for healthy and happy skin

Did you know that skin health6 is one of the top three drivers that Kiwi parents consider when purchasing disposable nappy brands? Huggies® understands that parents want to do the best they can for their baby by focusing on taking gentle care of bub’s skin.

Designed especially for baby on the move

As a parent, you can be comfortable knowing that Huggies® SlimFLEX Nappy Pants are now 70% more flexible, ensuring nothing is holding your toddler back from being active. Huggies® soft and stretchy 360° waistband provides a comfortable and secure fit for every twist, turn and wriggle while the advanced leakage barrier with twolayer guards gently hugs baby’s legs for leakage protection. Huggies® SlimFLEX Nappy Pants come in two varieties – Huggies® Ultra Dry Nappy Pants and Huggies® Ultimate Nappy Pants – so parents can find the perfect product for their baby.

» Huggies® Ultra Dry Nappy Pants with new SlimFLEX Absorbent

Core are made to move. They’re tailor-made for boys and girls and now 25% thinner and 70% more flexible – to allow baby free movement, while providing up to 12 hours’ leakage protection.

» Huggies® Ultimate Nappy Pants provide Huggies® best care for skin. Along with the same benefits of our new SlimFLEX technology to allow baby to move more freely, these nappy pants also feature a new 360° Cloud-

Soft waistband, which provides our softest and most advanced fit to hug baby perfectly.

Endorsed by Parents Centre Aotearoa

Parents Centre Aotearoa is the leading provider of childbirth education, parent education and support services to New Zealand parents, and has partnered with Huggies® for the last 20 years to offer Huggies® nappies and wipes to all Parents Centre members and course participants. Together, Parents Centre Aotearoa and Huggies® have taken care of hundreds and thousands of Kiwi babies – helping to make sure every baby is covered, from their first hug to their first steps to training pants and beyond. The Huggies® SlimFLEX Nappy Pants are available in major grocery stores and independent retailers nationally including Countdown, New World, PAK’nSAVE and Chemist Warehouse, and through a range of online retailers. For more information, please visit: www.huggies.co.nz/slimflex

KP

1. Activity Inequality Project by Stanford University in 2017. 2. Huggies independent research commissioned by YouGov, surveying 131 parents living at home with children aged 6 to 36 months in Australia in April 2021. 3. The Huggies Nappies Brand Health Report was conducted by Colmar Brunton, a New Zealand market research company. Online interviews were open to parents with children under three years old who buy

disposable nappies between 6 and 16 November 2020, surveying a total sample size of n=500. 4. No added formaldehyde, elemental chlorine, natural rubber latex or other chemicals restricted by Kimberly-

Clark – see www.huggies.com.au/noaddednasties 5. Compared with the previous version of the product. 6. The Huggies Nappies Brand Health Report was conducted by Colmar Brunton.