91快活林

The study is aimed at improving understanding of the development of children’s feet.

Volunteers will visit the university’s Baby Space at the Eastbourne campus where their feet will be looked at using state-of-the-art technology. This will help researchers understand how feet change and grow over time.

Dr Juliet McClymont, Research Fellow in the university’s School of Health Sciences, said: “There were gaps in understanding where parents get their knowledge about foot health and how professionals can provide support.

“The foot is a common site of pain and injury in children and by learning how feet develop in the early months we will be able to re-examine current methods of clinical care.”

‘Small Steps’ is one of two projects within the Great Foundations initiative, a collaborative effort between the universities of 91快活林 and Salford. Small Steps looks at changes in foot use, skin and muscle shape to understand the biomechanical development of the infant foot.

The university's play safe area

Dr McClymont said: “We have little understanding about how the foot develops in early infancy, so we’re tackling this by gathering as much information we can on how baby’s feet respond to movements they’re comfortable with.

“This is really unique research that isn’t’ being undertaken on infants anywhere else in the world, so we feel very privileged as a team to be contributing to it.”

Volunteers will each receive £20 Love2shop gift vouchers each time they visit the baby space.

Dr McClymont said “Our baby space is unique in that we want to see how infants use their feet. The free-play environment is a really exciting and novel way for us to see how infants explore their world using their feet in the stages before they can walk.”

For more information or to volunteer to take part in the research email either info@greatfoundations.org.uk or j.mcclymont@brighton.ac.uk.