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The 2017 International Stillbirth Alliance Conference will take place at University College Cork from Friday 22nd September – Sunday 24th September 2017.

Save the Date!

www.isacork2017.com

A new HRB-funded study, shows that a mild blood or oxygen deficit at birth, which leads to a condition called Hypoxic Ischaematic Encephalopathy (HIE) can result in children having lower IQ than their peers at the age of five and increased rates of overall disability.  The study carried out by clinicians at the INFANT Centre, University College Cork, followed a group of babies born with mild, moderate or severe HIE until they were five years of age.

Each year three in every 1000, or roughly 180, children born in Ireland will develop clinical signs of brain dysfunction, or hypoxic ischaemic encephalopathy (HIE) which require the baby to be admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit. HIE varies in severity and is graded as mild, moderate or severe.

Currently all babies with a moderate or severe grade of HIE are offered cooling therapy. The baby is cared for in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, placed on a cooling blanket and their body temperature is maintained at 33.5-34.5 degrees centigrade for 72 hours. Cooling at this crucial time reduces the energy expenditure of the brain, reduces inflammation and gives the brain time to recover improving the chances of a good long-term outcome.

Cooling has repeatedly been shown to be safe and effective for babies with moderate and severe HIE and almost halves their risk of cerebral palsy or moderate-to-severe disability at 5 years. However, to date children with mild grade of HIE (approximately 90 babies each year in Ireland) are not cooled because their outcome has generally been thought to be very good.

According to Dr Deirdre Murray, HRB Clinician Scientist and Lead Investigator on the study,

“We wanted to examine cognitive and motor outcomes among all grades of HIE babies up to the age of five. We monitored the function of the baby’s brain very carefully in the first few days after birth by measuring the tiny electrical signals of the brain (EEG). This helped us to accurately grade the degree of altered brain function.  Our research has shown that at five years, children admitted to the NICU with a mild grade of HIE at birth have IQ scores approximately 10 points lower than their peers. At five years the children had higher rates of difficulties than we would expect in the areas of learning, speech, movement or behaviour, with 35% of the group having problems in one or more areas.

Clearly the outcome for children experiencing mild HIE is not as good as previously thought.  This raises the question of whether infants with mild HIE should also be offered cooling therapy soon after birth. At present we don’t have an answer to this question as no trials to date have examined the effectiveness of cooling in infants mild HIE and whether this would improve their outcome.”

INFANT Director and study co-investigator Professor Geraldine Boylan says, “This study is very important given more than half of all infants with newborn encephalopathy are assigned a mild grade at birth and do not receive cooling therapy. This study has clearly shown that these infants have significant problems by five years, which represents a significant burden of disability in Ireland, and worldwide.”

Speaking about the research Dr Graham Love, Chief Executive at the HRB said, ‘this work highlights the importance of embedding research into everyday clinical care, and then using the evidence it provides to inform clinical practice or future research ’.

Deirdre Murray adds, “We urgently need to examine our management of this group of infants in the crucial first days after their birth and further research is needed to assess the impact of cooling on newborns with mild HIE.”

We will host our annual research day on 9 September 2016 at the Western Gateway Building.

Registration is FREE through Eventbrite: please register HERE

The INFANT Centre will host its annual research day on 9 September 2016 at the Western Gateway Building.

6 CPD Points are Available 

Registration is FREE through Eventbrite: please register HERE

BETTER OUTCOMES FOR MATERNAL, FETAL & INFANT HEALTH

Western Gateway Building, Western Road, Cork. 

PROGRAMME

08.30: Registration

9.00:  Opening Address

Prof Louise Kenny, Director of INFANT

09:15-10:45 – Intrauterine Growth Restriction & Pregnancy Loss

Chair: Dr Keelin O’Donoghue, PI Infant

KEYNOTE: PROF PETER VON DADELSZEN, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON.

1. Intrapartum Deaths and Intrapartum Event Related Neonatal Deaths int he Republic of Ireland, 2011-2014

Karen McNamara, Richard Greene and Keelin O’Donoghue 

2. Rates of Stillbirth and Neonatal Death Secondary to IUGR over a 10 Year Period

Ciara Nolan and Etaoin Kent 

3.The General Populations’ Understanding of Miscarriage: A Cross-Sectional Study

Sarah Meaney, Jacqueline Sheehan, Rachel Rice and Keelin O’Donoghue

Coffee Break & Poster Session  

11.15-12.45 – Clinical Trials in Perinatal Populations

Chair: Prof Geraldine Boylan, Director of INFANT

KEYNOTE: DR MARK TURNER, UNIVERSITY OF LIVERPOOL.

1. Risk based monitoring (RBM) tools for clinical trial monitoring – a narrative review

Caroline Hurley, Frances Shiely, Jessica Power, Mike Clarke, Joseph Eustace, Evelyn Flanagan and Patricia Kearney.

2. Habitual Calcium and Vitamin D Intakes in Pregnant Irish Women; Preliminary Data from the DMAT Randomised Controlled Trial

Karen O’ Callaghan, Áine Hennessy, Louise Kenny and Mairead Kiely

3. Validation of altered miRNA in neonatal hypoxic ischaemic encephalopathy: The BiHIVE 2 Study

Ann Marie Looney, Marc O’Sullivan, Mikael Finder, Conor Bogue, Caroline Ahearne, Geraldine Boylan, Boubou Hallberg and Deirdre Murray

Lunch & Poster Session

13.30 – 15:00 – Immunology, Dermatology and Atopy

Chair: Dr Deirdre Murray, PI Infant

KEYNOTE: PROF ALAN IRVINE, TRINITY COLLEGE DUBLIN.

1. A dose-interval study of a dual probiotic preparation in preterm infants.

 C Watkins, K Murphy, Eugene M Dempsey, Carol-Anne O’ Shea, P W O’ Toole, R P Ross, C Stanton and C A Ryan

2. Carbohydrate Syntrophy during feeding on Mother’s Milk enhances the establishment of Bifidobacterium breve in the neonatal gastrointestinal tract.

Mary O’Connell Motherway

3. Postnatal Breastfeeding rates in low risk Nulliparous women in a tertiary hospital

Lisa Mc Sweeney, Cathy Monteith, Colm Breatnach, Patrick Dicker, Adam James, Elizabeth Tully, Maura Lavery, Afif El Khuffash and Etaoin Kent

Coffee Break & Poster Session

15.15 – 16:45 – Innovation in Medical Engineering

Chair: Prof Frederic Adam, PI Infant

KEYNOTE: MATTHEW PICKET, CERNER CORPORATION.

1. Estimating the Gestational Age of Preterm Infants with EEG

John O’ Toole, Elena Pavlidis, Sampsa Vanhatalo, Geraldine Boylan and Nathan Stevenson    

2. Further enhancing obstetric training through the amalgamation of simulation and virtual reality

Donnchadh Coffey, Sabin Tabirca and Richard Greene      

3. Community Connected Health for Pregnancy: The case of LEANBH

Simon Woodworth, Paidi O Reilly, Molly Mattsson, Louise Kenny and Frederic Adam      

17:00:  Prize Giving

Register for your FREE ticket http://tinyurl.com/infant2016registration