Mother and baby research established in York
Posted on 24 November 2004
The researchers form the core of the Mother and Infant Research Unit (MIRU) in the University's Department of Health Sciences. The unit will further consolidate the University's reputation for pioneering health research.
Headed by Professor Mary Renfrew, MIRU was set up in late 1996 and was built on a midwifery research group she had established in Leeds. It is a multi-disciplinary team with wide-ranging research interests and carries out work in the UK as well as having close links with international agencies.
Professor Renfrew said: "We are looking at how midwives, health visitors and other practitioners use evidence in practice in their work with women in the community. We will be building on that work and hopefully building new links with York though we shall continue to work with the NHS in Leeds.
"We are very committed to the cycle which takes research through into practice and we also have a programme of work around evidence-based policy and practice. We are working directly with the NHS in terms of development work."
Staff involved in the unit's current research programmes, including health psychologist Professor Jo Green and midwife researcher and senior lecturer Helen Spiby will work in York where six new posts are also being created.
The unit's current projects include the Early Labour Support and Assessment trial --ELSA -- testing care for women in early labour. It will assess whether a mother staying at home for longer leads to a reduction in the number of interventions and the rate of assisted and caesarean births.
Professor Renfrew said: "We are testing whether the care midwives give in early labour at home could be better than the care they currently receive in hospital. It may be that staying at home with a midwife could reduce anxiety in the mother, and leave less time for inappropriate interventions once she does go to hospital. This in turn could lead to a reduction in the number of interventions and the rate of assisted and caesarean births; the trial should tell us whether or not this is the case."
The study involves working six collaborating centres in Yorkshire and 11 different hospitals and birth centres as well as primary care trusts in the region. The unit has also been commissioned by the Health Development Agency to set up the new national Collaborating Centres for Maternal and Child Nutrition. The main aim is to try to reduce inequalities in health by improving maternal and child nutrition, initially by increasing breast feeding. Work also includes a study of nutritional support in pregnancy to low income women to try to avoid low birth-weight babies.
A series of publications will result in the next year from a project examining the psycho-social aspects of genetic screening. Researchers studied responses by both parents to newly-developed screening techniques to test pregnant women for a number of conditions.
Professor Renfrew added: "This is critically important because screening such as this can cause great anxiety in the family. The advice and information given has not kept pace with the technology."
Notes to editors:
- The University of York's Department of Health Sciences is a large multi-disciplinary department, offering a broad range of taught and research programmes in the health care field, including nursing. It aims to develop the role of scientific evidence in health and health care through high quality research, teaching and other forms of dissemination.