Improving early intervention for preterm babies through an innovative smartphone app
What's the child health challenge?
Each year, over 2.5 million babies are born very prematurely before 32 weeks of age. Approximately 50% of these babies are likely to experience significant health and neurodevelopmental problems throughout their lives.
Early intervention is key to improving the health outcomes of these vulnerable children. Yet for most infants, especially those who live in rural or remote areas or who come from socially disadvantaged backgrounds, early intervention is difficult. This is due to not having enough access to appropriately trained health professionals.
Early intervention for very preterm babies involves the General Movements Assessment (GMA). GMA is a method that evaluates infants' spontaneous movements to assess whether they are typical or atypical. If the young infant has atypical general movements, this may indicate neurodevelopmental impairments, such as cerebral palsy and other motor, cognitive, language and/or behavioural difficulties. Babies who do undertake GMA may only receive generic interventions which do not target the individual needs of the infant.
Receiving a GMA in the first 20 weeks of life is critical to helping paediatricians diagnose the existence of any neurological and developmental issues. Therefore, ensuring all infants have timely access to a GMA will give more of these vulnerable children the opportunity to live healthy and fulfilling life.
What's the discovery or innovation?
At Murdoch Children's we are working to improve the quality of life for children who enter our world very prematurely.
Murdoch Children’s developed Baby Moves, an easy-to-use, first-of-its-kind app that will revolutionise the way parents and health professionals monitor infants’ spontaneous movements. These movements will then be assessed by a General Movements Assessment (GMA) professional during the critical 12-16 weeks age bracket. Baby Moves helps to ensure all infants at risk of neurodevelopment issues can be screened in a timely manner.
Baby Moves works to empower parents and health professionals by working as a screening tool for neurodevelopment conditions such as cerebral palsy, and other motor, cognitive, language and/or behavioural difficulties. The app will prompt parents to record and upload a video of their infant at specific times, based on the date the infant was due to be born. These videos are then submitted to a secure database where they can be accessed by a GMA professional.
By helping to identify if any further developmental assessment is required, the Baby Moves app can positively impact the health outcomes of all children who are brought into this world too early. This way, our researchers are helping give high-risk infants a better start to life.
How did the Murdoch Children’s Innovation team contribute?
Our Innovation team helped develop the Baby Moves app which is part of a sophisticated portfolio of products and services helping improve the lives of children and families worldwide.
Through its partnership with the award-winning digital health company Curve Tomorrow, our Innovation team assisted with Baby Moves from its inception all the way through to the app going live.
To ensure the app could operate sustainably and have longevity, the team designed a cost-recovery model alongside partnership options which helped to limit dependency on ongoing grant funding.
Powered by innovative research and led by Murdoch Children’s Dr Alicia Spittle, this new product will help to shape the future of precision child health and improve the lives of children born prematurely for years to come.
How is it changing children’s lives?
Thanks to the Baby Moves app, parents can now receive fast-tracked professional monitoring for their babies in need of early intervention.
At-risk babies can be more easily monitored by GMA professionals in early infancy, giving them access to tailored interventions faster. This is one of the many ways Murdoch Children’s is driving meaningful change for families with children born prematurely.
