Funding to improve health outcomes for women and babies

Two researchers from The University of Western Australia have received funding to improve health outcomes for sick newborn babies during medical transportation and prevent mastitis in breastfeeding women.

The Women and Infants Research Foundation announced funding support for the projects through its Research Acceleration Awards that aim to grow research to have real-world impact.

Dr Joseph Carpini, from UWA’s Business School, received funding for the project Development and Validation of the Proactive Emergency Newborn Transport Template.

Image: Dr Joseph Carpini (far right) and the team of award recipients.

Dr Carpini will lead a multidisciplinary team from UWA, in partnership with the Neonatal Emergency Transportation Service of Western Australia, to provide a framework to optimise emergency newborn transport.

“In WA, the world’s largest retrieval area, approximately 1,300 newborns are transported annually,” Dr Carpini said.

“We will develop an innovative tool to improve outcomes for sick babies, offering direct and indirect benefits for WA infants’ and women’s health.

“A critical component of transporting these babies is stabilisation and it is estimated that up to 28 per cent of stabilisation times can be reduced through effective coordination and planning.”

Professor Mark Nicol, from UWA’s School of Biomedical Science and co-director of the Centre for Human Lactation Research and Translation, will lead the project Identification of probiotic bacteria to prevent mastitis in breastfeeding women.

“This project will advance our understanding of mastitis, an infection of the breast which often interferes with women’s ability to continue breastfeeding their babies,” Professor Nicol said.

“We aim to use modern molecular tools to identify whether probiotic bacteria can reduce the occurrence of mastitis in breastfeeding women, and to develop better diagnostics to identify its causes.”

Six projects will share in $200,000 funding supported by the Stan Perron Charitable Foundation and the Bass Family Foundation.