Why have I been specially chosen?

In the late 1960s, there was a lot of concern about the number of babies born with abnormalities, or dying very early in life. Doctors and others wished to examine the factors associated with good health in mothers and babies. It was decided that the best way to do this would be to study all the babies born in Britain in one week – and that just happened to be the week in 1970 when you were born! The midwives who delivered the 17,000 of you born in England, Wales and Scotland in that week asked your mothers if they would be willing to take part in the study which was then known as the British Births Survey.

Five years later it was decided that it would be worthwhile to try and find as many of your families again, to see what had happened to you – how healthy you were, how you were getting on at school and so on. Since then, as you know, the study has gone on to follow you throughout the rest of your childhood and on in to adulthood.

*Those born in Northern Ireland were not followed up in subsequent surveys.