{"id":207545,"date":"2025-12-30T00:49:10","date_gmt":"2025-12-30T00:49:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/207545\/"},"modified":"2025-12-30T00:49:10","modified_gmt":"2025-12-30T00:49:10","slug":"parents-warned-over-blind-spot-around-babies-and-screen-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/207545\/","title":{"rendered":"Parents warned over \u2018blind spot\u2019 around babies and screen time"},"content":{"rendered":"

A new study has been launched to investigate a significant “blind spot” concerning screen time among babies, experts have revealed.<\/p>\n

Academics from the universities of Leeds, Nottingham, Aston, and Leeds Trinity are set to assess the impact of screen usage on the youngest members of society.<\/p>\n

The research is being funded by the 1001 Critical Days Foundation, a charity established by Dame Andrea Leadsom, a former health minister, which aims to provide babies with the best possible start in life.<\/p>\n

Will Quince, a former education and health minister recently appointed as the charity’s chief executive, stated: “We know anecdotally that even newborn babies are exposed to screens.”<\/p>\n

\u201cAs education minister, I saw first-hand how often babies are overlooked \u2013 there is a real, baby blind-spot.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

A new study will look at the impact of screens on the smallest members of society (Getty\/iStock)<\/p>\n

\u201cTake screen time, where the debate focuses on young people, social media and banning phones in schools, whilst babies are increasingly being exposed to screens.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome babies are now spending more than four hours a day in front of screens.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is an important study \u2013 it\u2019s not about shaming parents \u2013 it\u2019s about having the evidence needed to break the baby blind-spot and give parents and carers the information they need to help give their baby the best start in life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Experts say that children should learn through interacting with adults and the world around them.<\/p>\n

Some have said that use of a screen time when a child is very young can lead to longer-term issues with attention, communication, problem solving and communication difficulties.<\/p>\n

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has said that children under one should not use screens.<\/p>\n

It says that any time spent sitting \u2013 or sedentary \u2013 should be spent engaging in reading and story telling.<\/p>\n

For under-ones it also recommends they should be physically active several times a day in a variety of ways, and that they should not be restrained in a pushchair, pram, highchair or carrier for more than one hour a time.<\/p>\n

For children aged one to two years, they should not have screen time for more than one hour a day and \u201cless is better\u201d, the organisation said.<\/p>\n

Research suggests three in 10 babies in Japan are exposed to four hours or more screen time a day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A new study has been launched to investigate a significant “blind spot” concerning screen time among babies, experts…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":207546,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[126623,126620,126621,134,126622,111,53063,139,69,7542],"class_list":["post-207545","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-blind-spot","tag-critical-days-foundation","tag-dame-andrea-leadsom","tag-health","tag-leeds-trinity","tag-new-zealand","tag-newborn-babies","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-screen-time"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207545","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=207545"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207545\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/207546"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=207545"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=207545"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=207545"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}