Welcome to Growing Up in New Zealand

Growing Up in New Zealand is a new longitudinal study of New Zealand-born children, led by the University of Auckland, to follow a group of 7,800 children from before they are born until they become adults (about 20 years old).

Growing Up in New Zealand is designed to get good information about raising happy, healthy children so we can improve the lives of all New Zealand children.

We're inviting all pregnant women living* in the Auckland, Counties-Manukau and Waikato DHB regions, with babies due before 25 March 2010, to enrol in Growing Up in New Zealand.

*(To be eligible you must live in Auckland city (south of the Harbour Bridge), Hauraki Gulf islands, Manukau, Counties, Hauraki, Thames-Coromandel, Matamata-Piako, Waikato, King Country and National Park).

Your age, relationship status, baby's birth order, ethnicity or any other factors do not have any effect on you or your baby taking part in Growing Up in New Zealand.

So if you are expecting a baby before 25 March 2010, we'd love you to be a part of Growing Up. You can register through our website or call us free on 0508 476946.  Your baby's father (or your partner) is also invited to be a part of the project because dads/ other parents are just as important to your baby as you are.

To gather as many voices as possible from our New Zealand families, we're inviting:

• Māori, European, Pacific, Asian, and Indian women, and women from other cultures
• Women born in New Zealand
• Women who have moved to New Zealand from other countries
• Women living on farms, in small towns and in cities
• Single women and women in relationships
• First time mothers, and women having their second or another child
• Women having twins or triplets
• Same sex couples
• Women who have become pregnant through assisted reproductive technologies
• Working mums and women at home