Here at the INFANT Research Centre, we specialise in the science of babies brains!

The brain develops more in the first five years than at any other stage of our life. The first 1,000 days of life are vital as the brain and biological pathways formed during this time can affect physical and mental health for the rest of a babies life.

During pregnancy and infancy, it is obvious how physically reliant babies are on their parents and caregivers. They are socially and emotionally connected to us in so many fascinating ways. The way we interact with babies and infants shapes their brain development. Infant Mental Health is the term used to describe the ability of a child to form close relationships with those around them like mum and dad, siblings and grandparents, to understand and express their emotions and to explore and learn about their environment around them. When one hears the phrase ‘infant mental health’, there may be a tendency to be concerned that is it connected with mental illness and be puzzled as to how the term mental health could be associated with the stage of infancy.

Babies are like scientists, exploring the world around them by sending out messages to see what happens, how things work, and where they fit in!  They serve the ball and wait for us to return it. ‘The ball’ might be a cry, a smile, eye contact, a word, or stretched out arms. For our ‘serve’ we can offer physical touch and comfort, calm tone of voice, eye contact, smiles, repeated words, and praise. When we respond with love, calmness, and positivity, meeting their needs, we enable them to form attachments, develop trust, and confidence in us as their parent/caregiver.

Babies need love, secure relationships, to feel connected, in order to thrive. They will only learn how to be part of happy relationships by experiencing them: they learn to love by being loved.

Here are some simple everyday things that parents and caregivers can do to nurture the mental health and wellbeing of babies.

• Talk with your child constantly
• Create a healthy environment
• Ensure your child feels heard
• Playtime is vital
• Expose them to new settings and people

INFANT PhD student Mark O’Sullivan has won the top prize at Enterprise Ireland’s Student Entrepreneur Awards 2020 for his Neurobell medical device. Mark was one of 10 finalists participating in the virtual final of the third-level Student Entrepreneur Awards.

Mark developed Neurobell to support early detection and monitoring of brain injuries in newborns and has being working on the project since 2016. With the device, he aims to help clinicians diagnose abnormal brain activity faster and with greater accuracy.

“This award will help Neurobell on the road to commercialisation and help me excel as an entrepreneur,” 

“Sincere thanks to my academic advisors and colleagues, and to the entrepreneurship ecosystem in UCC which has provided me with the support and resources to achieve this.”

He will now receive a €10,000 cash prize fund and have the opportunity to avail of specialist advice and assistance from Enterprise Ireland to help turn his enterprise idea into a business reality.

Well done Mark!

Researchers at INFANT  have received funding for a pilot project that aims to reduce the number of hospital check-up visits for pregnant women during the COVID-19 pandemic.

With funding from Science Foundation Ireland, INFANT researchers will apply connected technology to enable pregnant women to have their blood pressure monitored remotely.

The project is one of 11 proposals which is to share funding of €1.4m under the SFI-coordinated research and innovation response to the COVID-19 pandemic, as announced today by Minister for Business, Enterprise and Innovation, Heather Humphreys TD.

If a pregnant woman’s blood pressure is too high for too long and left uncontrolled, it can affect the baby’s growth and may be a sign of a potentially life-threatening condition called pre-eclampsia.

In some cases, women with suspected high blood pressure may need to present at the hospital for extra check-ups as well as their routine consultations. This is more difficult during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The study at Cork University Maternity Hospital will use remote technology to monitor blood pressure in pregnant women in the COVID-19 pandemic, including inpatients and outpatients and COVID-positive and COVID-negative mothers. The 500 pregnant women who enrol in the project will use an automated device connected to the INFANT Research Centre’s LEANBH platform to measure their blood pressure and relay the results to the clinical team. The mothers can then be alerted if their care needs to change.

The result will mean fewer mothers needing to attend outpatients in CUMH in person for blood-pressure monitoring during the COVID-19 pandemic, thereby reducing potential exposure to the virus. It will also allow closer monitoring of blood pressure in pregnancy than is currently possible.

LEANBH can also be used within the Maternity hospital to allow women to take their blood pressure themselves in a dedicated, isolated room,  if required, without the need for direct contact between staff and patient. The readings thus taken are directly visible to the clinicians and automatically uploaded in the patient’s record just like they would be for a home reading. This further limits opportunities for person to person contamination – a further advantage of the software solution developed at INFANT.

In addition, the blood-pressure data will facilitate future research, and the project will also see the LEANBH platform integrated into the National Electronic Health Maternity Record, potentially leading to a roll out to all maternity units in Ireland.

The research, which has been awarded €118,877 in SFI funding, is led by Professor Frédéric Adam, Business Information Systems Department, Cork University Business School, and the INFANT Research Centre, and Dr Fergus McCarthy, Consultant Obstetrician and Senior Lecturer, Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology and the INFANT Research Centre at University College Cork.

Prof Adam said: “Connected health solutions offer great opportunities to respond to the challenges that hamper the progress of healthcare systems around the world. The care for many pathologies could be radically changed by using leading-edge yet affordable technology delivered quickly – for instance on a mobile phone – directly to the patient.

Dr McCarthy said: “This is a fantastic opportunity to improve our care for pregnant women by offering them safe, accurate and convenient monitoring of their blood pressure in pregnancy in the comfort of their homes with results monitored by an in-house team of midwives and doctors.

“There is huge potential to extend this project nationally, and relook at how we offer care to all our pregnant women to ensure they have as safe a pregnancy as possible.”

Commenting on todays announcement, INFANT Director, Prof Geraldine Boylan said: “We are delighted to received funding for this important project from SFI under the  COVID-19 Rapid Response call which allows INFANT to work closely with the excellent team at Cork University Maternity Hospital.  This project demonstrates the value of strong collaboration between Universities and the HSE in addressing urgent clinical needs,  which is more important now than ever.”