Baby Week is a registered charity and aims to bring sectors and services together to promote the best start in life. The initiative was inspired by Brazil’s ‘Semana do Bebe’ (UNICEF 2010), following a visit to the country by Churchill Fellow Lucy Potter. Leeds hosted the first English speaking Baby Week in 2016 and since has had interest from several other towns and cities wanting to host their own celebrations. Since Baby Week became a registered charity, Bradford, Hull, Wakefield, Cheshire and Merseyside have organised their very own take on Baby Week Leeds. In 2019, we were nominated and came in second place as charity of the year by The British Journal of Midwifery Practice Awards (BJM). 

Over the past six years, hundreds of citywide events have been held with thousands of attendees including  parents, expectant parents, practitioners and professionals , and of course babies! Each city hosting the week has the opportunity to celebrate and bring together the work of maternity and early years services, helping to raise awareness of the critical developmental growth stages and a real focus on the 1001 days in order to give every baby the best start in life. 

Baby Week is organised with Child Friendly Leeds with partnerships involving NHS Leeds, Leeds Teaching Hospitals, Leeds Dads, Public Health, Mumbler, and many more partners across all sectors. To mark the 5 years in 2020, Baby Week Leeds focussed on five of the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals as a focus over the next few years: Good Health and Wellbeing, Reduced Inequality, Sustainable cities and communities, Climate action and No Poverty.