Research project From Cradle to Care – and Beyond: Longitudinal Perspectives on Infant Placements in Child Welfare Policy and Practice
Infants placed in out-of-home care are among the most vulnerable children in the child welfare system, yet they remain relatively understudied in Swedish research. This project examines infant placements from a national and longitudinal perspective.
Using register data on children born between 1995 and 2025, the study analyzes prevalence, background factors, and changes over time, as well as placement patterns, stability, and both short- and long-term outcomes in health and education. The project aims to strengthen the knowledge base on the youngest children in the child welfare system and to provide evidence to inform policy and practice.
Infants placed in out-of-home care constitute a particularly vulnerable group of children. During the first year of life, children are entirely dependent on stable and secure caregiving, while placement decisions are often made under considerable uncertainty and in complex family situations. Despite this, knowledge about infant placements in Sweden remains limited.
This research project examines infant placements from a national and longitudinal perspective, with a particular focus on how early adversity and placement during the first year of life interact to shape children’s development across the life course. The project is theoretically grounded in a life-course perspective as well as in research on risk and protective factors.
The project is based on the Swedish Infant Care Cohort (SINC), which includes all children born in Sweden between 1995 and 2025. By linking multiple national administrative registers, the study enables analyses of factors at the individual, family, and system levels. The data provide unique opportunities to follow children over time and to examine both changes in child welfare practice and children’s developmental trajectories.
The project analyzes:
- Prevalence and time trends, to illuminate how infant placements have developed over three decades and which background factors are associated with placement.
- Placement patterns and stability, including care pathways through the child welfare system and outcomes such as family reunification, custody transfer, and adoption.
- Short- and long-term developmental outcomes, focusing on health and education from childhood into young adulthood, as well as the role of risk and protective factors.
By providing a more comprehensive picture of infant placements, the study can contribute empirical evidence to support the development of policy and practice in child welfare. The findings may also support more knowledge-based decision-making in cases involving very young children and contribute to a more informed public debate about child welfare interventions for the youngest children.