Take a look around the Centre for Baby Health Research at the Monash Medical Centre. In the Newborn Intensive Care Unit there are doctors and nurses in direct contact with the frailest of infants and their families. Take one step back, into the crowded laboratories, and there are the biologists, physiologists, psychologists and even engineers, poised over an array of medical technology.
The Centre for Baby Health Research is a unique research unit that sits within Monash University's Institute of Reproduction and Development in the Faculty of Medicine. Nowhere else in the world is there such a concentration of varied expertise jointly working towards improvements in baby health.
At the centre, the traditional professional categories are blurred. Many researchers here prefer the term biomedical scientists because it captures the comprehensive and interdisciplinary nature of their work.
The centre has been at the forefront of baby health research since the early 1960s with its research and clinical application of neonatal intensive care and, later, with other institutions, with research and public health campaigns including a high-profile assault on sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS).
Each year in Australia, one in 50 babies (5000) are admitted into the newborn intensive care units of our major hospitals. Of every 1000 births, 10 babies die.
The statistics sound grim, but the picture has been far worse. In fact, it is improving by the day. Over the past 40 years, the infant mortality rate has been halved.
Major falls in the infant mortality rate have corresponded with advances in medical science. In the mid-1970s, when Monash researchers pioneered the introduction of neonatal intensive care units into Victorian hospitals, the survival chances of frail pre-term babies took a dramatic leap forward.
Centre director Professor Adrian Walker is proud that Monash staff have been key players in that process.
"You can look at the statistics of lives lost over the years, but I prefer to look at the lives saved. It used to be that every year in Australia, 500 babies died from SIDS. Now it is 200. That is 300 lives saved each year. That is some 2000 children today running around a playground who owe their survival to the research and education programs conducted across Australia."
Most infants admitted to a newborn intensive care unit survive their initial acute illness. However, after improvement in the first few days, further progress is often slow and problematic. Almost half the infants born before 32 weeks' gestation, and nine out of every 10 born before 28 weeks' gestation, develop chronic lung disease.
In this condition, the lungs are inflamed and scarred, and the infant needs long periods of medical support with oxygen and mechanical ventilation. The condition often leads to severe complications of other organs such as the heart, brain, stomach and kidneys.
"Recent evidence suggests that maintaining the right amount of gas in the lungs - by keeping the lungs 'open' - may be the key to preventing chronic lung disease," explains Professor Victor Yu, director of newborn services at Monash Medical Centre.
Professor Victor Yu and Professor Adrian Walker
from Monash Medical Centre are leading research into
lung disease among premature babies.
Gift aids researchA former Monash academic has bequeathed a substantial collection of paintings to the university to establish a fellowship that will help researchers investigate infant and child health. The collection of Dr Blair Ritchie, who died last year, was auctioned earlier this year at Sotheby's. The Australian and European paintings and sculptures raised almost $400,000 for the university's Institute of Reproduction and Development. Dr Ritchie had devoted his professional life to understanding respiratory problems, particularly in infants and babies. Since 1982 he had worked with the institute's Centre for Baby Health Research. Proceeds from the Ritchie Collection have been donated to the institute to support research into improved treatment of disorders of the respiratory and cardiovascular systems in babies, both before and after birth. Dr Ritchie graduated from medicine in 1956 and had a distinguished career in medical research in respiratory medicine, spending time in Edinburgh, London and California before joining Monash's Medicine faculty. - Deborah Morris |
For details of how you can help the Centre for Baby Health Research, contact Professor Adrian Walker on (03) 9550 5474.