Research update: Blood brain flow study
Research update: Brain blood flow in children born preterm.
An insight provided by Dr Max Berry.
First of all I would like to say a huge thank you to all of the families, and especially the children who came to take part in this study. It’s a big ask to come in and help us out – and we really appreciate it!
So, what did the study show? Well, we started with the question ‘is brain blood flow controlled differently in children born prematurely?’. The reason we need to ask this is to better understand the impact of preterm birth on all aspects of health. Answering questions like this is essential to help us work towards better and better long-term outcomes for our NICU graduates.
It’s also worth saying that studies like this highlight the great team we have in Wellington with clinicians, scientists, the NICU and Neonatal Trust as well as the wider community working together. This means we are able to do studies that, to the best of our knowledge, have not been done anywhere else in the world before.
We were able to get enough children to take part in the study, which means we can now start to look at the data and try and understand it. There is still a lot of complex analysis that needs to be done, but the first look suggests that yes, children born preterm do have subtle differences in the way that blood flow to the brain is regulated. A lot more work needs to be done to fully understand what these data are showing us. As we start to understand the implications of these results, we will be sharing them with our scientific and medical colleagues as well as with our NICU community. We will keep you posted!
The image to the right shows Jacob Bailey during the brain blood flow tests.
The Little Miracles Trust will continue to provide more updates as they become available.
The Little Miracles Trusts’ support of research is made possible by all those who help us. In particular, the work of Dr Max Berry has been supported by:
- The New Zealand Financial Markets Association. www.nzfma.org
- ICAP www.icap.com/what-makes-us-different/charity-day.aspx
- The PwC Foundation. www.pwc.co.nz/pwc-foundation
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Neonatal care is a comparatively fledgling clinical field. We support research so that the care delivered is enhanced and the long term consequences of prematurity are better understood.
Other articles relating to neonatal research:
Neonatal research overview, March 2015
Over and above research, you can also see other examples of how we help
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We get a lot of positive feedback from families in a neonatal unit who read these stories and feel strength, hope and positivity knowing that they are not alone going through these experiences and feeling certain emotions.
If you would like to discuss sharing the story of your neonatal journey, we’d love to hear from you.
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If you want to help our support of families going through the stress and anxiety of a neonatal journey, you can donate via the link below.
- The Little Miracles Trust provides support to families of premature or sick full-term babies as they make their journey through Neonatal Intensive Care, the transition home, and onwards. We do not receive any Government funding and are entirely reliant on the generosity of individuals, companies and organisations in the form of donations, value-in-kind donations, grants, sponsorship and fundraising events to supplement operating costs and fund our services and initiatives.
- As we are a registered charity (CC56619) with Charities Services New Zealand we will send you an IRD compliant tax receipt – this will happen automatically by return email.