New ECHILD Publication: Maternal social care experience during adolescence and children’s outcomes
A new study published in Communications Health sheds light on the intergenerational effects of social care involvement. Led by researchers Difei Shi, Matthew Jay, Ruth Gilbert, Nicola Vousden, Louise Mc Grath-Lone and Katie Harron, the study documented worse birth outcomes for babies born to mothers with social care experience compared to their peers.
One in four children in England need social care by the age of 18 due to being at risk of significant harm. These include children who have experienced or are at risk of experiencing abuse, neglect and other forms of adversity, all of which are associated with poorer educational attainment and long-term health disadvantages. Due to data constraints, there have been limited research on how these disadvantages may transmit to the next generation. Exploiting the linked structure of ECHILD data, the research group was able to compare outcomes for children born between 2012 and 2020 based on the characteristics of their mothers aged 17-24 years.
Through multivariate analysis, Shi et al. found that maternal involvement with children’s social care (CSC) between ages 11 and 16 is associated with multiple adverse outcomes in the next generation, such as increased risk of low birth weight, preterm birth and unplanned hospital admissions during infancy compared to children whose mothers had no CSC involvement. For a subset of mothers aged 17-19, age 5 outcomes were also studied, though no significant differences were found after adjusting for confounders. Heterogeneities by CSC type were also observed, where children born to mothers who were in the care of the local authority (CLA) were at increased risk of infant mortality.
These findings emphasize the value of linked administrative data like ECHILD in identifying high-risk populations. They also highlight the urgent need for integrated, life-course support for young and CSC-experienced mothers to mitigate adverse inter-generational outcomes.
About the study
This research used anonymised, linked administrative data from ECHILD, which combines Hospital Episode Statistics and National Pupil Database records for nearly all children in England.
ECHILD data are available to accredited researchers through secure access.
📄 Read the full open‑access article:
[DOI: 10.1038/s44528-026-00029-y]