Nordic network about the child’s first 1000 days – a healthy start in life

The right of children to equal opportunities for life and development 

There is at present a great deal of variation in working methods and procedures among those organisations that work with the youngest children and their parents. Of a large number of methods and measuring instruments used, only a few have been evaluated so thoroughly that they have sufficient support in recent research. Nordic collaboration on the development, testing and implementation of evidence-based working methods and approaches has tremendous potential. The goal is to create conditions for equal health and welfare for all children. If we collaborate more closely, we can do a lot – for the best interests of children in the Nordic region.

Each of the Nordic countries has access to a lot of new knowledge and working methods that the countries are working to put into place, in order to give all children and parents the best possible support during the first period of the child’s life. But the Nordic countries do not have sufficient capacity individually to introduce and teach new knowledge and initiate effective working methods as quickly as they would like. Work to test new methods and evaluate them takes time. It also takes time to adopt new working methods and implement them, and methods developed in other countries need to be adapted to the national context.

A good childhood is the foundation for lifelong health and well-being

The first years of a child’s life are crucial for the child’s mental and physical health. The child’s brain undergoes extensive development. This development is based partly on the child’s maturity and partly on the experiences the child has in the interaction with its carers and the context in which the family lives. This is especially true of those areas of the brain that influence learning, language development and emotional skills, which are fundamental for good development and health. It is now that the child acquires the skills required to learn how to trust, love and feel compassion for fellow human beings. They learn how to manage their emotions in order to be able to create their own positive relationships in the future. 

Good mental health is important for both the child and the family. This is why the UN, in its work on the global sustainable development goals, has placed particular emphasis on the responsibility of countries to ensure that all children have equal rights to life and development.  

Increased knowledge and Nordic co-operation

The Nordic network about the child’s first 1000 days –a healthy start in life is co-operating with the Nordic Welfare Centre from 2023 to 2027. The goal of this collaboration is to increase knowledge and the sharing of knowledge at a Nordic level on how we can better ensure children’s development and health from pregnancy until the child reaches the age of two.

Detect risks at an early stage

Co-operation within the network aims to follow up on the recommendations of Nordic experts and researchers for an enhanced and knowledge-based collaboration on the youngest children in the Nordic region.

The recommendations  are based on a Nordic Situation Analysis, which describes how services such as maternity care, child health and childcare in the countries contribute to the vast majority of children having a good, safe start in life. A review of how these activities and related services contribute to detecting and identifying risks to children at an early stage has also been undertaken. Known risk factors are, for example, if a parent is struggling with mental illness or drug addiction, or if there is violence in the family. The working methods used in the countries have also been mapped.

The network is working with the following recommendations

• Increase and spread knowledge about the importance of the first 1000 days of life for lifelong mental health and well-being.
• Provide comprehensive support for parents during children’s first 1000 days of life.
• Identify and respond systematically to risk factors early in life.
• Improve equity and quality in services for young children and their families.
• Strengthen cross-sectoral collaboration for the benefit of young children and their families.
• Advance Nordic research, knowledge and understanding about the first 1000 days of life.

The network is implementing a new project in 2025

In 2025, the network is implementing a new one-year project “Improving children’s health in the first days: Implementation of interventions and screening tools used in services in the first days of children’s lives”, funded by the Nordic Council of Ministers. Itla Children’s Foundation is leading the project in collaboration with the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare (THL) and representatives from the other Nordic countries in the network (Denmark, Iceland, Norway and Sweden) as well as the Nordic Welfare Centre, during the Finnish and Ålandic 2025 co-presidency of the Nordic Council of Ministers. The aim of the project is to promote the use of evidence-based practice and capacity in perinatal mental health in the Nordic countries.