Further written evidence to be reported to the House
Health and Social Care Bill
12:00 pm
Rosemary Dodds: I am not clear what the reasons are because my understanding originally was that the emphasis was to improve health and to improve diet in particular, with a view to reducing the risk of prematurity and improving birth weight in this country and, therefore, to give children a better start in the long term.
There is good reason to think that improving women’s diet at the pre-conception stage may have that impact but improving diet later in pregnancy is likely to have much less impact. Therefore, I would like to be clear, and I would like the Government to be clear, what the intention of the payment is because then it will be possible to assess the impact. Does that answer what you were asking?