Infant health research to benefit from HRC funding

Preterm newborn and infant health research to benefit from HRC funding

“Nothing is more devastating to a parent than the loss of a child to cot death or permanent brain damage to a healthy baby at birth,” says Health Research Council of New Zealand (HRC) Chief Executive, Dr Robin Olds. The HRC has today announced a $74.56 million funding investment into health research, including a number of research projects that directly address these tragic outcomes.

Currently infant mortality from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) is higher in New Zealand than in comparable countries, and it is particularly high in Māori infants. Annually, 70 infants die suddenly and unexpectedly, and 45 of these are Māori. Over 50 per cent die while bed sharing.

Professor Edwin Mitchell from The University of Auckland has been awarded $1.18M for a project that follows on from his research on SIDS two decades ago, and led to prevention campaigns that resulted in substantially reduced infant mortality.

Advising parents not to bed share with their baby has met with some opposition and has not resulted in significant behavioural change. Professor Mitchell’s research will involve a nationwide study of all Sudden Unexpected Deaths in Infancy (SUDI) over a three-year period. He expects that there will be 210 SUDI cases, and these will be compared with 420 control infants and their families. The aim of the study is to identify the risk factors for SUDI, particularly in Māori. The study will specifically look at modifiable risk factors, particularly those relating to bed sharing and what makes bed sharing safer, or more dangerous.

Children born very preterm (<32 weeks gestation) are at a high risk of cerebral palsy, cognitive delay, learning difficulties, ADHD, emotional problems and poor school achievement. Associate Professor Lianne Woodward from the University [Type text]

of Canterbury has been awarded HRC funding for a study that will examine the neurological development of the very preterm infant.

The study will examine the functional and anatomical abnormalities that relate to the challenges these infants face, using data from 110 children born very preterm, and 113 full-term children.

Previous work from this cohort has demonstrated abnormalities within the developing white matter (cabling networks) of the brain after birth that relate to early infant outcomes. This next phase will examine the effects of such abnormalities on later brain development and function at age 12 years.

Of particular interest in this research is the compensatory change or repair in the developing brain that allows good function despite injury. Professor Woodward’s findings will define the changes in the brain that accompany functional impairment and mechanisms through which the brain recovers in preterm children.

The increase in allergic disease among children in the developed world is widely believed to be due to reductions in exposure to infective agents (the hygiene hypothesis). One way to counteract this is by exposing pregnant women to beneficial bacteria, such as probiotics. Dr Kirsten Wickens from the University of Otago, Wellington, has received The effects of the probiotic on maternal health in pregnancy, including gestational diabetes mellitus, group B streptococcal vaginal infection and bacterial vaginosis will also be investigated as well. Probiotics are a cheap and safe intervention that may prevent cases of eczema and allergy in infancy and improve pregnancy outcomes for women.

Premature birth now contributes to approximately a third of cases of cerebral palsy - and the long-term disabilities that accompany it. Currently there are no effective therapies available to prevent this devastating condition.

Professor Laura Bennet from The University of Auckland has been awarded $1.15M to study the link between premature birth and cerebral palsy.

There is increasing evidence from preclinical studies in rodents that transplantation of stem cells can help improve the recovery from acute or chronic brain injury, but little from larger animals with complex brains.

As part of an international collaboration, Professor Bennet and her research team will undertake the first studies using a model that will provide results that are readily translatable to the human brain. They will use sheep stem cells that are found in the membranes around the fetus at birth, and normally disgarded, and study their fate and their effects on the growth and function of the brain.

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