NIFTeY arose as an outcome of a meeting held in Canberra in 1999. About 70 people - practitioners, academics and Government officials, representing many sectors concerned about the health and well being of children - met together to consider the emerging scientific evidence relating to the influences of early life experience, including pre-natal experience, to health and well being throughout life.

The meeting endorsed a proposal that a major initiative focussing on the First Three Years of Life should be launched to coincide with the first three years of the new millennium.

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