England launches Baby Box initiative

'Let’s start from a point of celebration: “You’ve had a baby, congratulations!” I think if we just start at that point, it’s such a positive strategy…’ Gill Perks, lead midwife at Queen Charlotte’s and Chelsea Hospital, London, was one of many people at the launch of the UK’s first Baby Box programme to speak so enthusiastically of the initiative.

The Baby Box idea originated in Finland where, since the 1930s, the state has provided pregnant women with a ‘starter kit’—a box containing various items that they will need when their baby is born. The box itself contains a hard mattress, and serves as the baby’s first bed; this aspect of the programme has been credited with reducing Finland’s infant mortality rate from 65 per 1000 births in 1938 to 2.26 per 1000 births in 2015.¹