A STUDY to give Bradford babies a healthier and happier start to life is recruiting 6,000 pregnant women.

Researchers behind the project say it is one of the most exciting happening in the UK and it is hoped its results will have a national influence.

Its goal is to first improve the life chances of babies born in the Bowling and Barkerend, Bradford Moor and Little Horton areas of the city, before the results are shared with children's service across the country.

The study will monitor how 20 new projects, set-up by a £49 million Big Lottery Fund grant to Better Start Bradford in June 2014, affect the health and development of the 6,000 babies.

It is building on to the successful Born in Bradford (BiB) project set up ten years ago to monitor the health of 13,500 babies born from all cultures and backgrounds at Bradford

Royal Infirmary (BRI) to find out more about the causes of childhood illness.

BiB director John Wright said: "Bradford can celebrate the fact that this is one of the UK’s most exciting research programmes. Born in Bradford’s Better Start (BiBBS) will build on the success of Born in Bradford by providing 6,000 children born in the city over the next five years with the support and help they need to give the very best start to achieve a happy and healthy life.

"Health professionals, voluntary organisations and local communities will work in a unique partnership to transform the lives of 2016’s new generation."

Projects will include supporting new mums to breastfeed, educating them about babies and toddlers' nutritional needs and improving the areas where they live.

Midwives will be giving out information about the study and mums, as well as partners, will be recruited to the BiBBS project over the next five years when they go to the BRI's Glucose Tolerance Test clinic 26 weeks into their pregnancies. The first of the babies will be born in spring.

Researchers from the Bradford Institute for Health Research and universities have formed a new innovation hub and will closely watch and evaluate how the Better Start Bradford projects work and the impact they have.

They will study the children’s social, emotional, communication and language development as well focus on diet and obesity issues and their findings will be used to improve services across the country to help children get a great start in life, said Mr Wright.

Dr Josie Dickerson, who is the Programme manager at the Better Start Bradford Innovation Hub, said: "The BiBBS team is really excited to see the first pregnant women joining our new birth cohort and we are looking forward to meeting the first BiBBS babies who will be born in early spring this year."