To optimise the long-term health and developmental outcomes of all high-risk newborn babies and families through personalised multidisciplinary approaches to treatment.
What are high-risk infants?
Doctors refer to babies who are born prematurely or who are sick when they are born as high-risk infants. This means they have a high risk of short and long-term health and developmental challenges.
In Australia, almost one in 10 infants is born ill, with the majority of illness being due to prematurity. Many will need to be admitted to neonatal intensive care (NICU).
Many issues can affect high-risk infants needing intensive care, including prematurity, infection, congenital or genetic problems. Work in the NICU requires supporting babies with all aspects of survival. This includes ventilating the delicate immature lung, facilitating transition to life outside the womb for the heart, and protecting the newborn brain at critical points in its development and ensuring adequate nutrition to support growth and development of these key organs.
High-risk infants need prolonged hospital admissions and ongoing outpatient care with high associated costs for health systems and families. Parents and siblings of high-risk infants have increased risk of negative impacts on their mental health, employment, and financial security.
Giving high-risk infants a healthy start to life
There have been considerable research-led advances in newborn care in the last few decades. High-risk infants are now surviving to childhood and beyond. Infants who were likely to have shortened lives are now seen as ones who may benefit from increased surveillance and early intervention. This can help them live longer and healthier lives.
Despite increased survival, improvements in long-term outcomes have not matched those seen in other childhood diseases. There remains an urgent need to improve current therapies and develop a more holistic approach to careand management in order to see continued improvements in health and development for high-risk infants. We believe understanding key risk factors is critical to identifying high-risk infants and to achieving improved long-term health and developmental outcomes for these babies.
Vision
Our vision is to optimise the long-term health and developmental outcomes of all high-risk newborn babies and families through personalised multidisciplinary approaches to identification, assessment, and treatment.
Aim
We aim to improve the understanding of disease and develop treatment strategies that will optimise the long-term health and development of all newborn babies admitted to newborn intensive care.
Our current research
Our goal is for all high-risk infants to receive standardised surveillance from birth onwards. This will allow us to predict which babies are at highest risk for poorer health and developmental outcomes and to deliver the most effective treatments and therapies. Ultimately, this will lead to better outcomes for the child and their family.
The first step is to develop prediction models using a multitude of clinical, physiological, biological and imaging platforms to identify which high-risk infants are most likely to develop specific health and neurodevelopmental problems in the newborn and early childhood period. We can achieve this by understanding which risk factors lead to poorer long-term outcomes. We will then develop new timely interventions focussing on optimising health and wellbeing for the baby and parents.
Why the Murdoch Children's?
We are uniquely placed to achieve our goals. We are a team of world-leading multidisciplinary researchers, and our research encompasses a broad range of high-risk infant groups. The High Risk Infant flagship team includes clinicians in neonatology, neurosurgery, cardiology, pulmonology, developmental medicine, mental health, haematology, imaging, psychology, physiotherapy, occupational therapy and speech therapy. We work closely with respiratory, genetic and laboratory scientists.
We are supported by world-class research facilities including the Melbourne Clinical Trials Centre, Developmental Imaging Group, Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics Unit and Biobanking. We also have access to large cohorts from within our world-leading LifeCourse program. We have important national and international collaborations which maximise the impact of our work on high-risk infants globally.
The High Risk Infant Flagship has the skills to drive policy change and translate research outcomes to improve clinical care and build a more holistic approach to improving the health and development of all high-risk infants and their families.
Our Flagship members
The flagship members consist of representatives from across the Murdoch Children's Research Institute themes of Clinical Sciences, Infection and Immunity.
| Flagship member | Role |
|---|---|
| Prof Jeanie Cheong | Group Leader/Princ Research Fellow, Clinical Sciences, Victorian Infant Brain Studies (VIBeS) |
| A/Prof David Tingay | Group Leader/Principal Research Fellow, Clinical Sciences, Neonatal Research |
| DrLeah Hickey | Honorary Fellow,Clinical Sciences, Neonatal Research |
| Prof Sarath Ranganathan | Group Leader / Principal Research Fellow, Infection and Immunity, Respiratory |
| A/Prof Sebastian King | Co-Group Leader, Clinical Science, Surgery |
| Prof Vicki Anderson | Theme Director - Clinical Sciences |
| A/Prof Warwick Teague | Co-Group Leader, Clinical Sciences, Surgery |
| Dr Trisha Prentice | Honorary Fellow Manager, Clinical Science, Neonatal Research |
| Dr Joanna Cobb | Senior Project Coordinator, Clinical Sciences, Neuroscience |
| Prue Pereira | Senior Research Officer, Clinical Sciences, Neonatal Research |
| Lovelle Poh | Research Assistant, Clinical Sciences, Victorian Infant Brain Studies (VIBeS) |
| Kerry Robertson | Research Psychologist, Clinical Sciences, Victorian Infant Brain Studies (VIBeS) |
| Dr Kate Cameron | Research Officer, Clinical Sciences, Victorian Infant Brain Studies (VIBeS) |
| Rachel Ellis | Research Officer, Clinical Sciences, Victorian Infant Brain Studies (VIBeS) |
| Avinash Kondiboyina | Research Officer, Clinical Sciences, Victorian Infant Brain Studies (VIBeS) |
Related projects
- Neonatal Research Group
- Centre of Research Excellence in Newborn Medicine
- Victorian Infant Brain Studies (VIBeS) Group
- Surgery research area
More information
High Risk Infant brochure203.03 KB
