Raising Happy Healthy Children is a fully updated second edition of What Children and Babies Really Need. With new information carefully added, this book examines the crucial early years from a child's perspective. It draws on the latest scientific research to show how the first few years determine the way children develop, body and mind, for the rest of their lives.The keys to this development are parents, and in particular mothers. A society which really cares for its children, says Sally Goddard Blythe, values parents, and makes it possible for them to spend time and be actively involved with their children for at least the first two years of life. Raising Happy Healthy Children presents convincing research to show how a baby's relationship with its mother has a lasting, deep impact. Recent social changes, such as delayed motherhood, juggling of work/life balance, limited uptake of breastfeeding, and use of parent-substitute baby equipment and electronic devices, are interfering with key developmental milestones that are essential for wellbeing in later life. Sally Goddard Blythe says, "We need a society that gives children their parents and, most of all, values motherhood in the early years."Includes: - Latest research about pre-conceptual, baby and child development- How social changes have unleashed a crisis in the experience of childhood- The crucial early years and child development from the child's perspective- How parents can give their child the best start in life- The importance of motherhood