Anxiety disorders are more common than depression in the perinatal period, but most parents and most clinicians still don't know it. In this episode, George speaks with Dr. Fiona Challacombe, Associate Professor of Clinical Psychology at the University of Oxford, on perinatal OCD, the misdiagnosis crisis, what attachment research shows about the parent-infant bond, and what effective treatment looks like.

Professor Claire Hughes, Cambridge's deputy director at the Centre for Family Research, joins Best Beginnings for a conversation shaped by more than twenty years of following the same children from the age of two. 

She talks about what siblings are actually doing for each other's development, why fathers' sensitivity grows through watching their partners, why the Millennium Cohort Study shows that children who like school in reception achieve significantly better outcomes a decade later, and why starting school is a bigger transition for parents than most people expect. One of the most research-rich conversations the podcast has had.

Dr Sanjiv Nichani OBE, consultant paediatric intensivist and author of Movement is Medicine, joins Best Beginnings to explain why young children's brains are evolutionarily defenceless against smartphones and social media and what the science says about the antidote. He shares what he started seeing in his own clinic, the neuroscience behind why the developing brain cannot resist addictive algorithms and why physical activity works on the brain's neurochemistry through exactly the same mechanisms as medication for ADHD and depression. He also discusses Healing Little Hearts, the charity he founded that has performed heart surgery on over 4,000 children around the world.

Season 2 of Best Beginnings starts 8 September. This trailer brings together six of the voices joining George this season, moving from the science shaping a child's biology to the systems and relationships shaping their everyday life. New guests will be confirmed throughout the season, with full episodes dropping from 8 September.

Camilla Reid, author of Pip and Posy and I Am Ready for School, joins Best Beginnings to talk about what children really need before they start school. In a wide-ranging conversation with George, she makes the case that school readiness is about confidence and self-management, not academic preparation, and explains why five minutes of shared reading a day from birth to five can add nearly 1.5 million words to a child's vocabulary. She also talks about screens, cortisol and the case for lending libraries in every early years setting.

Sally Hogg, founding director of Start Strong and founder of the 1001 Days Movement, joins Best Beginnings to explain why early childhood investment keeps cycling through without lasting change. She discusses the gap between what the British public believes about early years and what they demand from government, the "feckless parent" narrative that holds back political action, and what a new government should prioritise to make early childhood a permanent part of public infrastructure. She also reflects on building the 1001 Days Movement, working with the Royal Foundation and the Princess of Wales, and what gives her genuine optimism about the next ten years.

Lizzie Gaisman, CEO of the Richmond Project, joins George to discuss the findings from the UK's largest ever survey on how people feel about numbers and what it reveals about a confidence crisis that starts early, falls hardest on mothers and travels between generations. 

They cover why maths anxiety leads to real skill decline, why low-income mothers are both the most affected and the most motivated to change, and how our Everyday Maths programme is working to interrupt the cycle before children reach school age. 

A practical, evidence-led conversation about one of the most underweighted problems in early years.

Jodie Reed, co-CEO of Home Start UK, joins George to talk about what 9,000 trained volunteers do for over 60,000 families every year and why that work can't be replicated by statutory services. They cover why family isolation is a structural trend that didn't recover after the pandemic, what the data reveals about the families Home Start reaches, why most families will never engage with a formal parenting programme, and what Jodie's lockdown baby blind spot research found about the systems that protected families in a crisis. A clear-eyed, personal conversation about the gap between what family policy promises and what families actually need.

Dr Ingrid Katz, Director of the Yale Institute for Global Health, joins George to talk about one of the most important questions in public health and early years: why don't people use support that's free and available? Drawing on 20 years of research in perinatal HIV clinics in southern Africa, she explores trust, stigma, community co-creation and the practice of humble inquiry — and what all of it means for reaching the families who need help most.

Lauren Seager-Smith, chief executive of the For Baby's Sake Trust, talks with George about the programme working at the intersection of domestic abuse and the first 1001 days of a child's life. In this episode, they discuss why pregnancy is a critical window for intervention, why working with fathers protects babies and what the evidence says about love, connection and the prevention of violence.