0 - 6 months

Holding your baby close to you and noticing and responding to their individual cues such as for comfort, hunger, tiredness and fullness can help your baby to feel safe, loved and understood.

Why is it important?

New babies have a strong need to be close to their parents and will need to be fed often during the day and the night. As soon as your baby is born and if you are both well, holding your baby close against your skin can calm her, help regulate her breathing and temperature and help you both to get to know each other forming the beginnings of a close and loving relationship. Research shows that breastfeeding helps to provide a strong foundation and has many protective factors for mothers and babies.

Whether you choose to breastfeed or bottle feed, you can get support from your midwife, health visitor or local breastfeeding support services to ensure that your child is thriving physically and emotionally.

First point of contact

Your health visitor will make contact with you between day 10-14 and provide you with an opportunity to share your feelings about how feeding your baby is going, checking that you and your baby are doing well. They will support you to feed your infant in a responsive way which, in addition to providing your baby’s nutritional needs, will also meet their emotional needs, support their brain development and promote improved health and wellbeing for the whole of your family.

Local services and information

Useful Hackney and City Health Visiting web pages

Get help to buy food and milk (NHS Healthy Start scheme)

If you are pregnant or have children under the age of 4 years and are receiving certain benefits or are under 18 years, you may be able to access food from the national Healthy Start scheme. Healthy Start gives eligible families a pre-paid card to buy fresh, frozen or tinned fruit and vegetables, fresh, dried or tinned pulses, plain cow's milk and infant formula.

  • An application for the digital Healthy Start scheme can be made online or by telephone on 0300 330 7010. To activate your card, press 1. To speak to an interpreter, press 2. For any other queries related to Healthy Start, or your Healthy Start card, press 3.

Rose Vouchers for fruit and veg in Hackney

If you have young children under 5 years old or are pregnant, you may be eligible to receive Rose Vouchers for fruit and veg. You can spend Rose Vouchers on the fruit and vegetables of your choice with participating market traders and greengrocers in Hackney.

Families receive £3 of Rose Vouchers for each child every week, or £6 if the child is under one year old. Rose Vouchers are collected from local children’s centres each week.

Rose Vouchers are available for families on low incomes, including those with no recourse to public funds.

Free vitamins in Hackney and City

Free vitamins are available to help your baby and young children grow up strong and healthy and help you maintain your health during pregnancy and after birth.

If you live in or go to the GP in City and Hackney, free vitamins are available for pregnant women, new mothers and children under 4 years. 

National resources

Mental health and wellbeing

Infant feeding/growth

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This page was last modified on: 28 Dec 2023
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