Newborn health

Who does this affect?

• Neonatal problems are the number one global burden of disease.
• In Australia, almost one in 10 infants (26,400 annually) are born ill, with prematurity being the most common most illness.
• About 15 million babies are born prematurely every year worldwide.
• Complications from premature birth caused roughly one million deaths globally in 2015 but 75 per cent of these complications were preventable with medical interventions. 
• A further one in five Australian infants born at full term will need resuscitation (51,000 annually) and of these, 31,800 will need life-saving newborn intensive care or special care nursery admission.
   

Our newborn health research

Our Neonatal Research group consists of neonatologists (doctors specialising in newborn care), nurses, scientists and engineers whose aim is to improve treatments and outcomes for sick and premature newborns.

The team includes world leaders in advanced respiratory (breathing) therapies, resuscitation, lung and brain injury and problems that are present at birth that require surgery in early life. It comprises world leaders in neonatal neurology (the specialty dealing with the brain and nervous system of newborn to one-month-olds), brain imaging and investigative bedside tools. Our team also has experts in bioethics and methods of improving the mother/father-baby experience in the NICU (Family Centred Care).

Our experts investigate and generate new knowledge on a range of newborn health topics including lung health, oxygen systems, impacts of low birth weight, neonatal infections, and innate immunity – the defence system babies are born with which is the first line of defence against germs.

Our neonatal research trials include:

• Researching how to better support and protect the lungs of newborns on ventilators
• Examining methods of improving resuscitation
• Evaluating adding treatment to therapy that cools body temperature and allows the brain to recover in infants with brain injury
• Evaluating the harms and benefits of treating certain seizures in babies born at term with brain disease
• Studying if stem cells can reduce the high risk of serious lung disease in premature newborns
• Studying what factors around birth increase infection risk in premature infants
• Studying new simple blood tests that help clinicians determine the best treatment for a sick babies lungs

The Neonatal Research Group is also leading the largest ever international trial of a new treatment for helping premature babies’ lungs at birth (POLAR Trial), and a global registry of the impact of COVID-19 on newborn babies needing NICU care (EPICENTRE Registry).

Our vision

The goal is for healthy newborns to become healthy adults. Our vision is optimising long-term health and developmental outcomes for sick and premature newborns through personalised approaches to identification, assessment and treatment. Improving understanding of disease and developing strategies to maximise outcomes will especially benefit babies in newborn intensive care by allowing clinicians to provide the right treatment to the right baby at the right time.

We also strive to partner with parents in the care of their infants using a family-centred model of care, such as COCOON in the RCH NICU. This improves important health outcomes for the whole family, such as infant and parent mental health, and allows our consumers to drive our research agenda to find solutions to problems that impact their lives.

Where to next?

We have launched the Murdoch Children's High Risk Infants flagship, a major initiative to bring together all the experts within the Melbourne Children’s Campus to accelerate our ability to care for these vulnerable newborns.

With the focus on Precision Newborn Health, this aligns with the visions of Murdoch Children's Research Institute and brings cutting-edge artificial intelligence, machine learning, bioinformatics and molecular science, together with better frameworks to identify and provide early intervention to optimise the lives of our previous newborns and their families.