August 5, 2025
Amy Dobson, Health Visitor & Senior Research Assistant at University of Southampton joined Michael Fanner and the Supporting Early Minds team for a webinar in May 2025. She was speaking about her PhD work, to develop a theory-, evidence-, and person-based digital behavioural intervention to support parents and reduce inaccurate medicalisation of unsettled baby behaviours.
She discussed how parents often worry about their babies being unsettled during their first year of life, such as instances of prolonged crying, or of vomiting, or of other common infant symptoms. This can be very distressing for families and can be linked to negative outcomes for families such as poor parent mental health.
Amy Dobson discussed how there is an increasing trend to attribute medical causes such as reflux or cows’ milk allergy to these experiences. Prescriptions for specialist allergy formula rose by 500% between 2006 and 2016. There have also been increasing rates of prescription for reflux medication over the same time period. Research suggests that developmentally normal behaviour in babies is becoming medicalised, particularly with significant consumer bias and conflicts of interest from the formula milk industry. Cohort studies show no increase in allergies.
As a clinician, Amy Dobson discussed how she felt that these families were not being adequately supported and that the tools were not in place to do so. Simply removing the prescriptions and specialist formula would also fail to meet the parents’ needs.
She shared her PhD research which centred around supporting parents of unsettled babies. She started with a systematic review which took a qualitative approach looking at these parents’ experiences, with a particular focus on medical labels and illness interpretations for those unsettled symptoms.
A significant part of Amy Dobson’s research was around Public and Parent Involvement and Engagement (PPIE), so that those involved in her work were not just study participants but also partners in designing interventions moving forward.
She also carried out qualitative interview data with 25 mothers of unsettled babies exploring attitudes to medical labels. This enabled a deep dive into the data which then informed the subsequent development of the intervention. They also carried out three round of ‘Think Aloud’ interviews to share their thoughts on the proposed intervention.
So that’s a big thing for me … knowing when you should actually worry … I think my main thing is not knowing if what she’s doing is normal, basically.
P302
Amy Dobson described how new parents are in a process of ‘growing into’ parenthood against a backdrop of inaccurate societal messages, norms of perfection, and their own existing personal, cultural or religious identity. This is sometimes alongside trauma which they may have experienced around pregnancy or birth. They experience guilt and a sense of failure when their baby exhibits unsettled behaviour. This can impact their bonding and sense of connection which further exacerbates the feelings of guilt. Parents feel helpless and fear judgement which can lead to further feelings of isolation.
She shared the cycle of searching for a ‘magical fix’. The expectations that parents have both of themselves and of their baby, the way in which infant feeding is commonly entwined within unsettled behaviour, the way in which parents can feel dismissed by healthcare professionals, leading to a lack of certainty, feelings of helplessness, and sense of vigilance and problem readiness.
Dobson suggested that in the case of babies who do not grow out of unsettled behaviours, there are two possible routes out of the cycle. Firstly, they can get a medical label or prescription. Dobson explained that her PhD work has been around understanding how a medical label can meet the needs of the parents in order to better offer support. Alternatively, parents can adjust their expectations, expand their knowledge of normal development, and develop a positive parenting identity in some other way.
The key messages from Amy Dobson’s research were as follows:
The focus of the intervention was stakeholder co-production and keeping the parent in mind. The website was designed to help parents get the facts that they needed about when there is an actual problem and to make a personal plan of strategies. These strategies have all come from parents, sharing non-medical tips and other advice that have worked for them. The final part is on ‘what is a good parent’ to help re-frame for parents what a good parent might look like and offer reassurance.
Sometimes, it’s even just helpful thinking that you’re trying to do anything to try and ease the screaming. Having a plan, it would help, even mentally, thinking, well, I’m trying to do something.
P109
Parents seemed to report more positive emotions in the third part of the intervention when considering themselves as a parent.
It’s a really nice, simple way of going, ‘Yes, I’m doing enough. Things are safe. Baby feels loved.’ Yes, the needs are getting met in the middle of everything. It filters out all those little, niggly standards we have in life, and just looks at the main stuff. I think that’s a really good activity. I’m definitely going to do some of these afterwards.’
P306
“Well, it is actually a little bit different to what I expected. I didn’t really know exactly what to expect but my first instinct was it might be just sections of advice around things like colic, reflux, that kind of thing. So actually, now that there’s a slant more to actually you’re a good parent, that’s quite nice because I didn’t expect that … Yes. I feel like it’s going to be more supportive than I thought it might be, now that I’m seeing the pages.
P203
It feels credible. It feels honest and it feels supportive without having an agenda.
P201
Amy Dobson and her team are seeking funding to trial the website as a tool for supporting parents. While she recognises that a website will not be suitable for all parents, she suggests it has potential as part of the wider landscape of parental support.
Further Reading