Neonatal Research

Listen to Professor Colin Morgan talking about the Neonatal Research Projects:

Baby Belly Campaign

Alder Hey Children’s and Liverpool Women’s Hospitals are working in partnership to change and improve how neonatal services are delivered to families across the North West. Together they have formed the Liverpool Neonatal Partnership, focused on creating a single service and providing a safer service for young babies. A new build is underway at Alder Hey to create a new Neonatal Intensive Care Unit providing 22 cots for term and premature babies requiring surgery. The state-of-the art facility would care for families across the North West, Isle of Man and North Wales. The Unit would be staffed by nurses with neonatal specialty training, advanced neonatal nurse practitioners, consultant neonatologists, consultant paediatric surgeons and therapists.

A dedicated surgical NICU will provide the safest environment possible for babies and their families at Alder Hey and will further compliment the Liverpool Neonatal Partnership between the two hospital sites. This building design and environment will be carefully designed to meet needs of families who babies require prolonged hospitalisation following surgery. We will also be able to reduce the number of unnecessary and sometimes risky transfers of neonates between the two hospitals, significantly improving the experience of patients and families. The Unit is expected to be open in November 2025 with the first patients admitted in February 2026.

While there are a wide range of surgical problems affecting newborn babies, the most common ones in term babies involve abnormal development of the digestive tract or bowels. These often need surgery very soon after birth and intravenous feeding while the bowel recovers. While most babies recover, it can take many weeks and even months in hospital. Premature babies can develop inflammation of the bowel in a condition called necrotising enterocolitis (NEC). This serious, life threatening condition also requires surgery and weeks of intravenous feeding and recovery and is now one of the most important conditions affecting the outcomes of very premature babies. There is little research into how changes in medical care after surgery can improve recovery and outcomes for these babies. We have identified 3 unique programmes of work within our neonatal research team, that link closely with the new clinical service:

1. Detailed brain scans using MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) to understand how surgery and improved nutrition affects the developing brain

2. Additional nutrient supplements to optimise body chemistry with the aim of reducing complications after surgery such as infection and speeding up wound healing, recovery and discharge from hospital

3. Different methods of support for families to care for their babies (Family Integrated Care) adapting the environment and using technology to reduce the impact of long term hospital stay on families wellbeing and their baby’s recovery.

Each of these areas need funds to support capital costs to support the existing neonatal researchers to continue their programme of research. Each programme has specific projects (described below) that are ready to start or progress to the next stage. These funds (about £20K for each project) will be allocated for specific project needs as follows:

1. SuNBIRD: An exploratory neuroradiological study in Surgical Neonates using Brain Imaging during Recovery and/or at Discharge

Capital funding: MRI scans and analysis

2. SuNDiALS An exploratory physiological study of Surgical Neonates using Dimethylarginine:Arginine Levels following arginine Supplementation

NECTAR2: An exploratory physiological study during Necrotising EnteroColitis Treatment using ADMA:Arginine Ratios following arginine supplementation.

Capital funding: Nutrient supplements and biochemical laboratory analysis

3. SHIFT: Using Salivary Hormones to assess Integrated Family care models and new Technologies on reducing markers of stress in family and babies during long postoperative hospitalisation

Funding: New technologies (including virtual reality equipment) and biochemical assessments of stress in babies and families