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Main contact: Kayleigh Day Email: kayleigh.day.13 "at" ucl.ac.uk Office number: 020 7905 2334 |
Background
Why are we interested in Preterm development?
Due to fantastic advances in neonatal care, babies who are born very preterm, even up to 4 months early (23 weeks gestation), can now survive and develop perfectly normally. Unfortunately, some of these infants can have a slow development and may need extra help to progress as well as possible.
What do we already know?
To date, a number of studies have been conducted in older children, which has given us a better understanding of the developmental problems some of these children face later in life. However, we are yet to follow their development systematically through their early years which could provide some crucial information.
These previous studies have highlighted a number of neurodevelopmental problems that can affect the learning and behaviour of children born extremely preterm.
What do we hope to achieve?
Currently, we are working hard to try to develop programs to improve the developmental problems faced by preterm children later in childhood. However, we could be more targeted in our approach if we could identify the earliest signs of difficulties.
If from our research, we can detect an area in infancy that is likely to be affected, we could put together an intervention scheme specifically targeting this, from when the baby is in the neonatal unit, or soon after. By doing so, we hope to give all premature babies the very best start.
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