Babi Actif: Helping parents to actively enjoy the outdoors with their baby.

Time spent outside during the foundational years appears to be decreasing. Babi Actif’s project aim is to support parents to be active outdoors with their babies during their baby’s first 1000 days (from conception to 2nd birthday), by coordinating a programme of outdoor activity sessions across North Wales, and by generating online and physical resources. During an evaluation project carried out between January 2020 and February 2023, 1,028 Babi Actif participants completed surveys and a subset completed focus groups. At baseline, the Warwick Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale revealed that 17% of parents reported low mental wellbeing scores, whilst the International Physical Activity Questionnaire revealed that 11% of parents did not achieve the UK-recommended physical activity guidelines. Following participation in Babi Actif, 88% of parents reported that their own health and/or wellbeing improved, whilst 83% reported that their baby’s health and/or wellbeing improved too. Parents attributed improvements to the use of carefully selected service providers, the provision of outdoor skills that enhanced confidence to get outdoors, and the facilitation of parents’ social support networks. The Babi Actif project offers free resources to parents to enhance their family’s health and wellbeing and is ready for implementation in other geographical areas.