A collaboration between INFANT, the Embedded Systems group in the Dept of Engineering in University College Cork, and engineers in Tyndall National Institute has won a prestigious Collaboration Award from the Irish Laboratory Awards group.

The Irish Laboratory Awards has established itself as the premier event in Ireland for benchmarking those that demonstrate excellence, best practice, and innovation in Ireland’s laboratories.

The award-winning work is centered on the Brain Stethoscope Design, which is a low-cost and portable device that can acquire and interpret EEG signals (a measure of electrical activity in the brain). The device will provide easy-to-use EEG recording hardware, and software that will give a visual, sound-based and Artificial Intelligence-assisted interpretations to assist in healthcare decision making.

Twelve families bereaved by stillbirth took part in a research study by the Pregnancy Loss Research Group at the INFANT Centre and UCC, the results of which have been published today. Each of the parents detailed the events and experiences leading up to, surrounding and following the diagnosis of a life-limiting condition or stillbirth of their baby. Stressing the importance of good communication and sensitive care from healthcare professionals, the study supports the need for the HSE National Standards for Bereavement care following pregnancy loss and perinatal death to be implemented nationally.

The twelve families were cared for at CUMH and they took part in interviews, detailing the profound impact their experience had on their lives. The diagnosis of stillbirth is devastating and traumatic news. All parents spoke of the relationships they had with the staff who cared for them during their pregnancies and birth of their babies. The interactions with staff left a lasting impression on the family, and in an Irish context where termination of pregnancy is currently not  permissible, this study sheds an important light on the importance of the option of a perinatal palliative care approach for babies and their parents following a significant antenatal  diagnosis.. For parents who receive a life-limiting diagnosis that is likely to result in the death of their baby, the time between diagnosis and the baby’s birth or death, is valuable time where they can be helped to process their loss with the support of a multidisciplinary perinatal bereavement team. Although parents who experience an unexpected stillbirth do not have time to prepare; the time following diagnosis and the immediate care before, during and after birth offers valuable opportunities for sensitive bereavement care.

Dr Keelin O’Donoghue, leader of the Pregnancy Loss Research Group and Principal Investigator in the INFANT Centre noted:

“Staff have a huge impact on how parents experience care at a traumatic time. Good communication and empathic care are essential. The parents in this study remembered their interactions in vivid detail and while clinicians cannot change the devastating news that a baby has died, they do have control over how they communicate and care. AsNational Lead for the implementation of the HSE Bereavement Standards following pregnancy loss and perinatal death, we can learn from these parents’ experiences to ensure we provide consistent compassionate bereavement care in all our maternity hospitals” care”.

Critically important to each family was the creation of their baby’s unique identity: all parents named their baby, and this helped to create their baby’s identity and integrate them into their family. The parents treasured the finite time they had between their birth and their burial. Each of these babies had an enduring importance and will forever be a part of their family.

Every year across Ireland, approximately 500 babies die around the time of birth. The Pregnancy Loss Research Group in UCC and the INFANT Centre are working to understand and underlying causes of pregnancy loss and stillbirth and improve understanding and awareness amongst healthcare professionals.

Twitter handles:

• @PLOSONE
• @danielnuzum
• @keelinodonoghue
• @sarahmeaney5
• @pregnancylossIE
• @infantcentre

We are delighted that our Dr Deirdre Twomey has won the Cure and Care award at the jENS 2017 Conference in Venice on 1 November.

The jENS 2017 conference is a joint meeting of all the European Neonatal societies, the largest European Neonatal Research meeting to date.

BiHIVE’s Psychology Postdoctoral Researcher Deirdre Twomey was chosen to present her research abstract from the >800 submitted to the jENS conference and she was nominated for the Young Investigator Award.

Nine nominees presented their research during a special session at the conference and Deirdre won the Cure and Care Award for her presentation “Touchscreens for cognitive assessment of toddlers”.

The presentation allowed Deirdre to engage with key stakeholders and world leaders in the field of neurology, brain injury, and neurodevelopment and will lead to collaborations and future research.

This Research Day will share, promote and facilitate discussion on cutting edge, best practice perinatal research from international experts and early career researchers on how to improve health outcomes for pregnancy, infancy and childhood.

The event will take place in the Clayton Hotel, Lapps Quay, Cork. 

Registration Opens at 08:15. 

Our Programme begins at 08:45 with a Welcome Address.

A poster session will take place at the break time.

Lunch will be provided to all attendees.

Pregnancy/Pre-eclampsia Session

Chair: Prof Louise Kenny

09:00 – KEYNOTE: Prof Richard McManus

Self-Monitoring of Blood Pressure to Detect and Manage Hypertension During and After Pregnancy:

Can Women Do It Better?

• 09:45 – Dr Cathal McCarthy – Mitochondrial superoxide scavengers mediate endothlelial dysfunction in pre-eclampsia
• 10:00 – Eoin Roche – Analysis of comparable home / clinic blood pressure readings in the LEANBH population
• 10:15 – Sinead Flanagan – Periconceptual Maternal Alcohol Consumption and Subsequent Behavioural Outcomes at 2 and 5 Years of Age

Birth & Pregnancy Loss Session

Chair: Dr Keelin O’Donoghue

10:45 – KEYNOTE: Prof Anna David

Novel treatments for fetal growth restriction using gene therapy and other innovative approaches​

• 11:30 – Indra San Lazaro Campillo – Ectopic pregnancy and miscarriage hospital admission in Ireland: incidence, type of management and morbidity indicators
• 11.45 – Maeve O’Connell – Prevalence and associated risk factors of tocophobia in an Irish population
• 12:00 – Dr Karen McNamara – Intrapartum Death and Doctors: A Qualitative Exploration

12:15:  Lunch & Poster Session

Neonatology/Nutrition Session

Chairs: Prof Gene Dempsey & Prof Mairead Kiely

13:00 – KEYNOTE: Prof Barry Schifrin

The Timing and Mechanism of Intrapartum Fetal Neurological Injury

• 13:45 – Dr Daragh Finn – Clamping the Umbilical cord in Premature Deliveries
• 14:00 – Dr John O’Toole – Temporal Evolution of Quantitative EEG within 3 Days of Birth in Early Preterm Infants
• 14:15 – Dr Karen Ni Cheallachain – Estimation of the dietary requirement for vitamin D in pregnancy
• 14:30 – Dr Áine Hennessey – No association between maternal or neonatal vitamin D status and atopic disease in 2- and 5-year-old children in the Cork BASELINE Birth Cohort Study

Bitesize Thesis

Chairs: Prof Fred Adam & Dr Ria O’Sullivan Lago

• 14.45 – Stacey Power – The Experience of Pregnancy with Major Fetal Anomaly
• 14.50 – Sarah Carter – Variation in the Risk of Labour Induction across NHS Trusts in the United Kingdom
• 14.55 – Rachel Williamson – Evidence of mitochondrial dysfunction in Pre-eclampsia
• 15.00 – Gillian Maher – Hypertensive Disorders of Pregnancy and Risk of Neurodevelopmental Disorders in the Offspring: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis
• 15.05 – Deirdre Hayes-Ryan – Placental Growth Factor
• 15.10 – Mark O’Sullivan – Neonatal Brain Stethoscope
• 15.15 – Alison O’Shea – Neonatal Seizure Detection using Deep Convolutional Neural Networks

Participant Experiences Session

Chair: Dr Ria O’Sullivan Lago

15:45 – 16:15 – KEYNOTE:  Ms Sally Crowe

Research and Involvement

• 16:15 – Carla Gower – Understanding the Experiences of Fathers of Infants with Congenital Heart Disease
• 16:30 – Dr Deirdre Twomey – The Subjective Experiences of Parents Participating in the BiHIVE #2 Study
• 16:45 – Dr Sarah Meaney – When One Twin Dies: Parents’ Experience of Perinatal Palliative Care

Closing Talk:

17:00 – Prof David Henshall, Director Future Neuro

Booking Link:https://www.eventbrite.ie/e/infant-research-day-2017-tickets-36438377167

WMB held its 11th annual Women Mean Business Conference & Awards in Dublin’s Shelbourne Hotel on 2nd October. The event recognises the achievements of businesswomen and entrepreneurs across Ireland. Prof Louise Kenny of the INFANT Centre was honoured with the WMB Woman in Technology Award for 2017 for her work as founding director of Metabolomic Diagnostics, a medical diagnostics company. Working with UCC, they are developing a breakthrough technology to provide predictive diagnosis of pre-eclampsia in early pregnancy. This technology has the potential to revolutionise prenatal care globally and save lives. In addition, it will dramatically reduce overall healthcare costs around the world.

Opening the event, An Tánaiste and Minister for Business, Enterprise & Innovation, Frances Fitzgerald TD said: “With the variety of awards here today, we can see the breadth of women’s ingenuity and ability to perform at a high level in the business world… As Minister for Business, Enterprise & Innovation, I am now in a job where I will seek to ensure that women in business are the leaders in business”.

A blog post from Sophie Casey: 

I was recently awarded the Irish Research Council’s Government of Ireland Postgraduate Scholarship for a 4 year PhD project. My work will investigate the downstream targets and effects of microRNA alterations in neonatal hypoxic encephalopathy (HIE) – a leading cause of infant mortality and lifelong disability.

I will examine the circulating microRNA alterations over time in a well-established animal model of HIE and research the proposed target pathways of these microRNAs. This allows insight into the genes which may be involved in the mechanisms of action behind the neuronal injury.

Future plans involve investigation into the effects and targets of microRNA alterations in cell models of hypoxia. As the investigation of microRNA alterations was performed during the BiHIVE study, the goal of this project is to identify potential cross-species bridging biomarkers of HIE.

Other research interests include autism spectrum disorders and their links to circulating cytokine alterations.

This work will be carried out under the supervision of Dr. Deirdre Murray, Dr. Gerard O’Keeffe and Prof. Geraldine Boylan.

Huge congratulations, Sophie! 

A  Service of Remembrance will be hosted by Cork University Maternity Hospital on

Friday 13^th October 2017 at 7.30pm

Sacred Heart Church, Western Road, Cork

All who have experienced or been affected by pregnancy loss or infant loss are very welcome to attend.

Infant Welcomes Dr. Peter Barrett

The Wellcome-HRB Irish Clinical Academic Training Programme (ICAT) has welcomed its first intake of fellows at an induction event, held recently at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland.

We are delighted to announce that Dr. Peter Barrett, ICAT fellow, has been appointed to UCC and will begin a year of academic and specialist training with Infant with Dr. Ali Khashan.

Research Excellence

Prof. Louise Kenny’s presentation at the induction event highlighted Infant’s commitment to developing the careers of talented young researchers. Peter will work with Dr. Ali Khashan in the Epidemiology research team and will also be mentored by Dr. Deirdre Murray, who was selected by ICAT as a model of research excellence.

Peter will take part in a diverse educational scheme which includes project work and clinical training.

Emerging Science

The ICAT programme supports emerging science excellence in Ireland by guiding ICAT fellows towards a Certificate of Completion of Specialist Training.

Infant are proud to support the growth of clinical expertise in Ireland and we look forward to working with Peter!

Promising Research

Infant is proud to congratulate Dr. Cathal McCarthy and Dr. Jane English, who have both won an Emerging Investigator Award from the Health Research Board.

The HRB Emerging Investigator Awards supports researchers in the middle of their careers to build sustainable research programmes. With an investment of €8.3 million, the HRB are rewarding 11 successful researchers for their “diversity and ability to multitask”.

Dr. McCarthy and Dr. English will now contribute groundbreaking research towards improvements in general health, policy and practice. They will also act as mentors to the next generation of researchers.

Rare Blood Samples

Dr. English’s research focuses on Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), a complex disorder of brain development. By identifying blood biomarkers in the blood at birth, Dr. English hopes to diagnose ASD at an early stage and maximise the effectiveness of therapy and treatment.

The Emerging Investigator Award will allow Dr. English to access rare blood samples from several international birth cohorts including the Danish National Birth Cohort, the Aarhus Birth Cohort, and Cork’s own BASELINE Birth Cohort (http://www.baselinestudy.net/). This makes it the largest Autism Biomarker Discovery programme undertaken to date.

Common Complications of Pregnancy

Dr McCarthy’s research interest is in the area of pre-eclampsia and gestational diabetes, two common complications of pregnancy becoming more prevalent in Ireland. Mitochondrial dysfunction has been identified for its possible influence on both conditions, with Dr. McCarthy’s study investigating the therapeutic potential of targeting mitochondrial function. It is hoped that this treatment could improve long-term outcomes for mothers and babies.

On the award, Dr. McCarthy noted the significance of the HRB’s support:

“The funding provided by the Health Research Board Emerging Investigator Award will provide me with the opportunity to investigate the shared and separate pathophysiologies of Pre-eclampsia and Gestational Diabetes Mellitus, ultimately helping researchers and clinicians to optimise diagnostic potential and improve treatment modalities for both pregnancy complications.”

The International Stillbirth Alliance Annual Conference will be held in Cork, Ireland from 22-24th September 2017 at the University College Cork campus. The Conference will take place over two days, Saturday and Sunday, with a mixture of plenary and concurrent sessions from invited speakers and selected presentations from conference abstracts.

10 CPD points will be awarded to delegates of the ISA Conference.

Pre- conference, an IMPROVE workshop will be held on Friday 22nd September (https://sanda.psanz.com.au/clinical-practice/improve/).