The Parent-Infant Foundation has published a new report, ‘Who is holding the baby?’, which explores the current landscape of specialised parent-infant relationship teams across the UK.
This research, launched as part of Infant Mental Health Awareness Week (June 9-15), brings fresh insight into the progress made – and the problems that still exist – in supporting babies’ earliest relationships.
For maternity professionals working with families from pregnancy onwards, the findings offer insight into the support available for babies experiencing early relational difficulties – and the areas where more support is urgently needed.
The report is a must-read for any professional working in postnatal care, capturing both inspiring progress and enduring inequalities in access to vital services.
What did the report find?
Drawing on questionnaire responses from parent-infant teams and Freedom of Information requests to mental health trusts, the report identifies the following:
Substantial growth, but not enough
There are now 49 parent-infant teams across the UK – up from 27 in 2019 – with many more in development. This growth has been driven by local champions, including clinicians and commissioners, as well as national initiatives like Start for Life and the Perinatal and Infant Mental Health Board. However, despite this progress, specialist support is still unavailable in many localities, and national funding remains inconsistent.
Teams vary widely in structure and reach
Parent-infant teams have evolved in diverse ways, often adapting creatively to local needs and funding streams – including public health, CAMHS, children’s services and the voluntary sector. The number of families supported directly by these teams ranges from fewer than 25 to over 300 annually. Start for Life has led to more services at universal and targeted levels, but specialist provision for complex needs remains limited.
Demand far outweighs capacity
It’s estimated that current teams support just 4-6% of babies who would benefit from specialist intervention – around 4,400-6,500 families per year. In CAMHS, most services still report fewer than 10 referrals a year for children under two.
What support looks like
Teams offer a formulation-led mix of evidence-based interventions, tailored to each family’s needs. Common approaches include video feedback, Circle of Security, and parent-infant psychotherapy. Many interventions are dyadic, involving parent and baby together. A third of teams also offer parental mental health support to help parents engage more fully with relational work.
System-wide impact through collaboration
Beyond direct work with families, parent-infant teams play a vital role in upskilling the wider workforce. In the past year alone, teams provided consultation to over 2,000 professionals, supervision to over 1,500, and training to over 40,000 – enhancing the system’s capacity to support early relationships.
Collaborative working with perinatal services
Around half of teams share referral pathways with perinatal mental health services, and many collaborate on care planning, supervision and reflective spaces. This joint working supports timely, holistic care for families.
Highly skilled multidisciplinary teams
Parent-infant teams are led by consultant-level clinicians and staffed by experienced professionals, including clinical psychologists, child psychotherapists, health visitors, social workers, midwives and others. These teams bring a specialist focus on pregnancy to age two, though some also work with older children, sometimes diluting the focus on infants.
Who’s included? Who’s missing?
Most teams work primarily with mothers and their babies, and data on fathers’ involvement is limited. Some teams are making efforts to better engage fathers, but others lack the systems to track or record this. Similarly, babies in the child protection system – among the most vulnerable – are not consistently prioritised, although many teams do accept referrals for these families and work with children’s social care where possible.
Hearing from parents, and from babies
Around half of teams involve parents in service design and feedback. Encouragingly, most also report that the baby’s voice is central to their practice – whether in assessments, consultations or decision-making forums – seeking to represent what babies might express if they could speak for themselves.
Why does this matter for maternity professionals?
A baby’s brain develops faster during pregnancy and the first two years than at any other time in life. The quality of early relationships has profound, lifelong implications for mental and physical health. When those relationships are strained, babies need urgent help.
Parent-infant teams provide that support, working with families facing complex challenges. They also support wider services, including midwifery, to recognise and respond to early relational difficulties.
For maternity professionals, this report is a valuable resource in understanding what support might exist locally, and in advocating for improved access to these essential services.
To learn more and read the full report, click the link below or head to the Parent Infant Foundation Website.
