Podcast: Protecting babies from the effects of domestic abuse

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Producer:
Listener note: this podcast features discussion of domestic abuse. Whilst listening, please be mindful of your own wellbeing and prioritise taking a break if you need to.

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Intro:
Welcome to the NSPCC Learning podcast, where we share learning and expertise in child protection from inside and outside of the organisation. We aim to create debate, encourage reflection and share good practice on how we can all work together to keep babies, children and young people safe.

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Producer:
Welcome to the NSPCC Learning Podcast. New research from domestic abuse charity For Baby's Sake has revealed that each year, almost 50,000 babies are referred to Children's Social Care in England with domestic abuse as a factor.¹

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In this episode of the podcast, recorded in March 2025, the NSPCC's Development and Quality Manager, Paddi Vint, will be talking with For Baby's Sake CEO, Lauren Seager-Smith, about this research, domestic abuse in pregnancy, and what should be done to improve support for babies affected by domestic abuse.

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I'll hand over to Paddi now to introduce herself and begin the discussion.

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Paddi Vint:
My name is Paddi Vint. I'm the Development and Quality Manager within the NSPCC Helpline and I oversee a team of domestic abuse practice advisors. Our podcast today is looking at the theme of domestic abuse and the impact on babies and with me today is Lauren. Lauren, do you want to introduce yourself?

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Lauren Seager-Smith:
Thanks Paddi. I'm Lauren Seager-Smith and I'm CEO of the For Baby's Sake Trust. We give whole-family therapeutic support to co-parents where there's been experience of domestic abuse. We start in pregnancy up to the baby's second birthday.

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Paddi:
So the Domestic Abuse Act for England and Wales now recognises babies, children and young people as co-victims in their own right, which I think for many of us in our charities and the domestic abuse sector, we've always strongly believed in. But this groundbreaking research that For Baby's Sake has done is really highlighting the scale of those children that've been affected.

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What does this new research from For Baby's Sake show about how many babies in England are affected by domestic abuse?

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Lauren:
We really wanted to know what the answer to that question was. And so, like all of us do in the sector, first of all, we went to see what was publicly available, particularly in terms of government data, children in need data, the sorts of things that were out there. And it was actually very hard to work out how many babies were directly impacted by domestic abuse because they were using categories like family dysfunction or it was coming under categories of emotional abuse or neglect. It was really hard to work it out.

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So we made the decision to do a freedom of information request to local areas to ask how many 0-2s were being referred into children's services with domestic abuse as a factor and then how many babies were being taken into care with domestic abuse as a factor.

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And we had a return from the majority of local areas, and we can come onto the kind of discrepancy in the data collection, which is an issue in itself, but what it seemed to suggest was that on average, around 50,000 babies are referred into children's social care every year with domestic abuse as a contributing factor, with around 2,000 babies taken into care with domestic abuses as a contributing factor.²

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But we suspect this is probably quite a significant underestimate, even of the number of babies that are being referred in with domestic abuse as a factor. But it gives us some idea, one as to the discrepancy between data recording in different areas, but the scale of the issue that we're all dealing with.

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Paddi:
Interesting you say that because the NSPCC Helpline receives around 200 contacts a day from members of the public and domestic abuse is around the fourth highest reason that people contact us. So your figures don't surprise me, but as you say, potentially is the tip of the iceberg.³

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Certainly from my experience, very often recognition that somebody's even in an abusive relationship can take a very long time to recognise and acknowledge, particularly given coercive control being played out in a relationship.

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Lauren:
Yeah, absolutely. And another piece of data that we collected: last year we did a freedom of information to police forces around the numbers of 0-2s present for police call-outs for domestic abuse. And that came back with the police forces that returned to us, which I think were 15 police forces, said that babies were present in about 13% of call-out, which was about 180,000 babies a year if you work it out.⁴

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So a lot more babies were present at police call-outs — and again, that data won't have been fully accurate — compared to the number being referred into children's social care, which is a worry in and of itself around what's happening there. So I think you're absolutely right, Paddi. We know one in five children experience domestic abuse by the time they're 18 and 30% begins in pregnancy.^1,5

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Paddi:
Absolutely. But it's brilliant to be able to have that information and that up to date research to be able to reference. In the research it was identified that children were having this children's services intervention and some children and babies were being taken into care.

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Why do you think so many babies are taken into care? Is it the additional vulnerabilities that a baby brings to a situation?

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Lauren:
Yeah, and Paddi, you'll know well that social care don't readily take babies or any children into care. And that's important for people to understand — that it will have meant that this is a critical incident here. It's because babies are, of course, extremely vulnerable and we know can be at high risk of homicide, and particularly where there's been experience of domestic abuse or where there is domestic abuse. So those babies are at a point of real vulnerability.

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But we would say that it's because there should have been intervention in those families' lives a lot earlier and for a lot longer to prevent that ever happening.

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Sometimes we work with parents who've had multiple previous children removed and this is the first baby they've ever been able to keep in their care and so very often it's a result of a failure of the system to support those families over a longer period of time, which then results in that baby having to go into care.

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Paddi:
Now you've got research findings, what do you think we need to see in practice?

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Lauren:
Well, I think the thing that it's really drawn out for us — and we know this because this is the reason for the For Baby's Sake Trust and the work that we do and the work that we've developed — is this significant impact of domestic abuse in pregnancy. And I think what we would like to be able to do is help to explore that even more. What's happening during that period of time within relationships that's leading to this epidemic of abuse, which is what it is. If 30% of it begins in that time, we're not talking about a small number of families here.⁷ And so really, really being able to understand what are the pressures on families at that point and what does that look like?

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And there's lots of things that we could talk around around that space. One of the things we're looking at at the moment is how much support is there for dads during that period of time? What does that look like? We've been involved with some work with an NHS trust looking at emotional health screening for dads during the perinatal period, which has helped to draw out domestic abuse during that period of time and what's happening for dads.

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But we know it's such a high-risk time, but it's also an opportunity, because that's time when services are actively engaging with women.

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Paddi:
And I think that sometimes can lead on to that sense of escalation, because there are services involved it can have a twofold [effect]: it can either increase the risk and increase the likelihood of isolation, but it also opens the door to the potential to have services in place. When you're pregnant or just after birth, you'd hope that there'd be an increase of those professional services from midwives and doctors and health visitors.

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How do you think support services for pregnant families and babies experiencing domestic abuse could be improved? That's probably a million dollar question.

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Lauren:
No, it's a brilliant question and it would be good to hear your thoughts on that as well, Paddi. I think from our perspective, we've got to have eyes-on. I'm really worried. I understand why the NHS wants to move more towards digital, but if we haven't got health visitors going out into the community, seeing parents, seeing babies, that's the risk. So we'd like to see investment in health visitors, support for health visitors.

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We'd like to see funding for IDVAs [Independent Domestic Violence Advocates] in hospitals, so they're out there with eyes on mums and babies, looking at what's happening with dynamics within relationships. We've got to invest in people who are out there supporting families. It's hugely important.

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And then we need to see training for midwives. We haven't got statutory rollout of training for midwives and health visitors. We can all do our bit as different agencies to try and offer what we can, but we need to see that uniformly delivered across the whole sector so that people are properly supported to engage with parents. And we'd like to see much more engagement with dads in this space as well. But Paddi, what would you say?

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Paddi:
No, I think you're absolutely right. Nothing can replace that face-to-face contact in terms of those early identifications. I know there's been some studies done looking at barriers to victims making those disclosures in health settings. And certainly on occasions, even a partner's physical presence can be a factor, or somebody who is potentially acting as a translator, if English is your second language, and the barriers that that may have. Just being able to have that opportunity to speak to somebody, to be asked the question, to allow you to answer is really, really important.

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Certainly I've been in some clinics where women leave potential samples in the bathroom with notes so that they can actually have that picked up by a professional and a safe space is created to be able to speak to that woman themselves on their own. But obviously that's something that we would love to be able to see.

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Lauren, you touched on there about the need for support, in particular for men, to be improved. And like many forms of abuse, that early recognition and intervention is key. But then equally, it's really important to have those services in place to address it. How do you think we could better support men?

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Lauren:
So as a charity, we take a trauma-informed approach to domestic abuse. We work with co-parents where there's a pregnancy and experience of domestic abuse. We have over 10 years experience of working with parents who use abusive behaviours, and on the whole that's the dad, but not always.

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And what we've learnt through that 10 years is a real understanding of the demographics of our families as well, and what's happened within those lives. A trauma-informed approach means really understanding what's brought people to this place and what are their histories. What we find with our parents is that— in the last cohort which we've just looked at, in the last quarter, 70% of our parents had five or more adverse childhood experiences. So we're talking about experience of domestic abuse at hands of fathers, but 30% was at the hands of mothers.

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We're talking about sexual abuse, emotional abuse, neglect, alcohol abuse within the home. We're very often working with very young parents as well. Commonly, our parents are between the age of 16 to 25 as well, which is often not understood. In the current cohort that we're working with, 13% were care experienced, but that can be as high as 25% in some areas. Mental ill health: 70% of our parents are struggling with mental ill health. Very high levels of substance misuse. Very high level of housing needs. And so it's understanding what's going on for these families.

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And I would say with men, there's a real lack of recognition of what these men have experienced as boys and as children. Yes, that begins in schools and it begins with education, but it also begins with schools recognising the number of boys and girls that are living with domestic abuse at home. How much are we recognising what children are living with at home and have grown up with at home, and the influence of what they're seeing at home. We know the internet has a massive influence, but your primary influence is your parents and what you grew up with and how much are we really recognising that.

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So in our work, we're really exploring that with our dads and our mums. And for our parents, having a baby is a real motivator for change because they often say this was the first baby in our whole generations of families to have a good upbringing, to have a good life and to have a chance of living without the shadow of abuse. And so for us, you've really got to look at the root causes of abusive behaviour and that takes time. That takes deep work with families.

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Paddi:
And as you say there, it's not just within one. There's housing issues, substance issues, school issues, and I think that's why it's so important that organisations can come together to be able to support; because ultimately, if there is domestic abuse in a relationship and that relationship doesn't continue, they're still going to be fathers. They're still gonna be mothers. So it's so important that they have the skills and the tools and the support there to be able to be as best a father or a mother as they can be.

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Lauren:
Yeah, that's right. And I think, you know, the other area of our work is really supporting attachment and attunement to the baby with both mum and dad, because that's so important for keeping that baby safe and has such a significant impact. So we work both within the relationship and what's been happening there, but also around that attachment and attunment; really looking at what does your baby need, recognising that domestic abuse impacts babies in the womb. Mum's cortisol levels are impacting that baby right from the get-go. So really helping parents to understand that.

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And it's really important to say, 50% of our parents safely separate during their time with us as well. So we're not here to keep families together at the detriment of anyone's safety. It's really important to stress that.

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But it touches on what you said, Paddi, that very often, even if that couple separate, they go on to have other relationships, they go onto have other children. And I'm sure you've seen that in your work that we can look at multiple partners being impacted by one person.

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Paddi:
Absolutely. Many of the women who contact our Helpline will often identify that their abuse started or escalated when they became pregnant. As you mentioned there, you know, 30% of domestic abuse starting in pregnancy, and then that increasing to 40% by the time the child's two [years old].⁷ And sadly, we know it's a high risk time. You know, I'd be interested to know why you think domestic abuse is so key in pregnancy. What is it about that [time], that's driving that forward? 

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Lauren:
Paddi, I wish we had the answer to that. I think this is an area that's really under-researched — really understanding what's going on. I read a statistic recently as well, which is that one in five of any couples separate by the time the baby's 12 months old. So for everyone, this is a really high risk time.

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Having had kids myself, I could guess at what some of the reasons might be. I mean hormones, right? Mass sleep deprivation in both partners. Struggling for money. The impact of not being in work, what that can do for families. It brings up an awful lot of stuff about your own childhood when you have a baby. I think probably something around— well certainly around mental health in both mums and dads. And I think we've only just really started to appreciate what's happening to mums and the risk of postnatal depression.

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I don't think we've even begun to go there enough with dads yet, but we're starting to see the research around that and around what's happening there. And I also think, what we've seen with some of our fathers is an intense fear of rejection at that point. That goes back to those childhood experiences of abuse around suddenly \"I may lose this person\" or \"I'm not number one anymore\". That's not justifying that by any means, but it can bring up some really big emotions.

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We know that one of the ways that you can really importantly work with people using abusive behaviours is to support emotional regulation, so a lot of our work is around that: is around helping parents be able to recognise their emotions and how they're impacting others and how you manage those emotions. But big stuff comes up for everybody when they have a baby and they're supporting the baby.

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Paddi:
And I think as well, it also increases the difficulty, potentially, for a person to leave an abusive situation. You know, all of a sudden, it's not just them anymore. It's them and their child and the ability to be able to potentially leave that situation safely.

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Lauren:
Yeah, and that's certainly true in the demographics of families that we support as well. And I think for all mums — and it's predominantly mums who are experiencing domestic abuse in pregnancy — there's a real vulnerability at that time as well. Like you said, it's not easy to just get up and leave. You're going to be financially dependent, probably, for a period of time as well. All of those things make that really, really challenging.

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There's also a huge fear that your baby's going to get taken away, so that if you tell someone and you don't feel able to leave, that your baby will get taken away. And that's something that we deal with a lot, supporting around the shame and stigma.

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We did research with 2,000 parents during the pandemic and what came out of that was again, staggeringly high numbers of parents saying that they'd experienced domestic abuse. I think it was about 40%. Many of them said that started in pregnancy, but again around 40% said they didn't disclose it to anybody and the primary reason they didn't disclose was shame. Gosh, how do we get around that?

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Paddi:
It's a factor we see on the Helpline; that victims often... their fear of feeling that they're not going to be believed, that they don't necessarily want to speak up or they're maybe saying things like \"well I've not been physically hit\" so therefore all of a sudden they feel it as a lesser form of abuse, which it absolutely isn't.

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I think language is so important and it's great to see things like CAFCASS' domestic abuse practice policy moving away from terms like 'alleged' when talking about abuse, because language can be so damaging and stigmatising. What impact do you think the use of inaccurate language when discussing domestic abuse has on victims?

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Lauren:
I think it's really important to explore what's leading to the sense of shame and stigma around domestic abuse. In fact we were even talking in the team this week about the word 'domestic' and some of the connotations that that has. We were saying it kind of makes you think, doesn't it, the 1950s and aprons and people with frying pans, and even that in itself isn't necessarily helpful.

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It's about being able to use language that doesn't underplay the seriousness of what's happening, but also means that people feel like this is accessible and this is something that they understand may be happening to them. We developed the parental relationship abuse spectrum to help people understand the difference between conflict and domestic abuse and how those things impact your baby because people need support to see that this is a wide spectrum of behaviours.

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We're not just talking about things that people associate particularly with physical abuse, but we're talking about, like you said, the huge instances of coercive control.

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Paddi:
Absolutely. And the impact, as you said earlier, on the baby and the stress that that can cause.

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Lauren:
Yeah, that has.

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Paddi:
Given the prevalence of domestic abuse, the likelihood is that professionals will be coming across potential victims of abuse on a daily basis. What do you think professionals need to know about domestic abuse and how to support pregnant families and babies affected by it?

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Lauren:
Everybody should do training in domestic abuse to understand all the different things that we're talking about, the different ways domestic abuse can manifest, the signs and symptoms to look out for when you're working with people and where you can signpost to support and all of that. So that's really important.

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But I also think it's important to be really aware of the heightened risk within pregnancy and to really think about how you within your services can create much more accessibility and opportunities for families to be able to open up to you and to share concerns with you and think about what that might look like. Being supported to open up those conversations as well and to hold those conversations. Again, we've got on the website — and I'm sure NSPCC has similar — resources around domestic abuse handbooks and guides and FAQs and different organisations where you can signpost to and support.

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I think it's just really important as workplaces that we really equip ourselves with domestic abuse policies for all our employers, so that all of us get a lot more confident in talking about this, recognising this, because that will help to remove that shame and stigma. But we also know that — and this came from Safe Lives — that a high percentage of families also seek support for the person using abusive behaviours, and it's very hard to get that support. And that's a real challenge. It's a real challenge because where do you turn? You know, if you genuinely want to change, where do you get that help? And that's tough out there at the moment.

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Paddi:
Absolutely. There definitely seems to be a lack of direct services available to be able to put those supports in place. Certainly, I think there's a lot, as you said, about being comfortable with the uncomfortable; to be able to ask the question. Because unless we ask the question, we're not going to be able to get a response to be able to then put in an understanding of specialist services or safety planning that can be offered, or referral pathways into other organisations.

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So creating that really safe, non-judgmental environment for me is key to be allowing us to start asking those questions. And I think having a real understanding of the barriers to reporting abuse also supports us in addressing the issues as well.

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Lauren:
I think so, and I think, you touching on the non-judgmental approach is so important; because from a trauma-informed perspective as well, it's very much about how do you empower people within their own lives and give them that sense of agency as well? Because I think people are really scared of losing control, so that if I report this, suddenly everything's going to happen and it's all going to be out of my control.

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It's helping people to understand, right, let's work together to put a safety plan in place. Let's really think about what you need at this time to keep you and your baby safe. And it's being able to do that and support that, because that's what people are scared of. They're scared that they're not going to have control. And, you know, to some degree, if there's a baby or a child at risk, then agencies need to take action to protect that baby and that child and to protect that parent.

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But it's helping people understand the reasons for that and what that means and how they'll do that, but that help is there for them and people aren't here to separate mothers from their babies.

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Paddi:
No, thankfully — that thought process is so clear in people's mind and that fear is so real, but actually agencies are a long way from doing that. But I think that also stops, to a certain level as well, professionals potentially raising a concern because they're worried that it might not be right.

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So they're not really sure. Could this be, is it not? Should I have concerns here? What are the signs? What are the symptoms? Should I be worried? And I think sometimes, you know, on the Helpline as well, we are more than happy to talk to a professional or a member of the public who has those inklings or concerns, to give them an opportunity to talk through and support them to be an ally to that family while they're going through this stage.

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Lauren:
Yeah and I think something else that definitely comes up in our work as well, and I know has come up in previous contact we've had with Pause — and those listeners that don't know Pause, they give support to mothers who've had babies removed — is for a number of the parents that we work with, they have had these intergenerational cycles of abuse within their families. Many of them have grown up with domestic abuse and to some degree that abuse has been quite normalised in their lives.

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They don't necessarily recognise that what they're in is anything different than what everyone else is living and experiencing. And so it's being able to recognise that as well, which means when you've got resources like family hubs or whatever it is we have out there, we've got to get a lot better at being really upfront about this.

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We shouldn't only be talking about domestic abuse once there's a crisis or once we think something's happened. These conversations should be mainstreamed. Perhaps it's not always using the language of domestic abuse either. Maybe using different language which feels less scary, or helps people to really think about what's safe for a family and safe within a family environment, can help to normalise these discussions. And then you can work with families to understand what is and isn't okay; because we might think that that's obvious, but it's not always obvious.

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Paddi:
Absolutely, certainly contacts that we've received... as you say, growing up in an environment where this has always been the norm, there becomes a level of, well, that's just what happens. And particularly within coercive control, where there's maybe been some threats and intimidation and emotional abuse, it's not always as easily recognised for people [that] that's not an acceptable relationship.

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Very often we have to almost strip it back and look at \"what is a healthy relationship\" rather than constantly looking at \"what's an unhealthy relationship\". Because I think really only when you look at what a healthy relationships is, does it almost help you identify areas that aren't healthy or that are potentially abusive.

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Lauren:
Oh, I love that Paddi, I love that emphasis on healthy relationships, because it's starting with a positive rather than a negative. It's about mainstreaming conversations about what healthy looks like all the time. I think that goes back to what we were saying about schools, about mainstreaming this in schools.

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It's not just about educating, it's about living healthy relationships with kids. It's about modelling healthy relationships so that kids can see in the way you treat them, the way you make them feel, feels different to something they might be experiencing at home, which then creates safety and trust, which then means those children are able to open up to you.

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So I think all of us have got a responsibility to be able to model and teach and share what healthy relationships look like and feel like. And I think that could go some way to helping to reduce that shame and stigma to then what it looks like to talk about when things don't feel right or don't feel healthy.

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Paddi:
The key thing for people is to know that there's help and support available. That's what we want to be able to share with people; that they can pick up the phone, they can reach out to particularly the NSPCC Helpline.

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They can contact us on 0808 800 5000, or they can drop us an email at help@NSPCC.org.uk, where we'd be more than happy to support mums, dads, professionals with any of their concerns in regards to this subject or any child protection subject.

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Lauren, would you be happy to share for listeners how they can reach out to For Baby's Sake?

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Lauren:
Yeah, if you visit forbabysaketrust.org.uk, we're available in a number of different areas in terms of support and there's also lots of resources on our website and signposting for help.

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Paddi:
Thank you so much, Lauren, for joining me today and talking about this subject. And thank you everybody for listening. All the best.

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Outro:
Thanks for listening to this NSPCC Learning podcast. At the time of recording, this episode’s content was up to date but the world of safeguarding and child protection is ever changing – so, if you're looking for the most current safeguarding and child protection training, information or resources, please visit our website for professionals at nspcc.org.uk/learning.

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