COMPARING Non-invasive fetal electrocardiography with Standard care cardiotocography in women with a BMI>35

Associate Professor Deborah Fox was awarded $280,000 Category 3 funding to conduct a Hybrid RCT (Curran et al. 2012) comparing Non-invasive fetal electrocardiography (NIFECG) and Standard care cardiotocography (CTG) in women with a BMI>35. 

The aim of this study is to compare the use of NIFECG with standard care CTG for intrapartum monitoring of women with a BMI of 35 or above, and to explore barriers and facilitators to implementation. 

The multi-site clinical trial aims to recruit 450 women in 2023-2024 and is being conducted at Wollongong Hospital, NSW; Box Hill Hospital, Victoria and the Townsville University Hospital in Queensland. 

Other CMCFH members collaborating on this study included Dr Vanessa Scarf, Dr Rebecca Coddington, Dr Kate Levett and Professor Kathleen Baird.

Impact of specialist neonatal care for at-risk babies on long term outcomes

Dr Vanessa Scarf and Associate Professor Lynn Sinclair are both chief investigators on an MRFF grant with colleagues in the Centre for Health Economics Research and Evaluation (CHERE). This project will use population-based data and quasi-experimental methods to assess the effectiveness of neonatal care. The study will address the early childhood research priority area, specifically the impact of specialist neonatal care for at-risk babies on long-term outcomes through asking the following key research questions:

  1. How has neonatal intensive care – that is, care delivered in Neonatal Intensive Care Units and Special Care Nursery settings – impacted on an individual’s outcomes (death rates, educational outcomes, health care use and costs) in the first five years of life in Australia?
  2. How do these outcomes vary by both patient-level (e.g. socioeconomic) and hospital-level (e.g. location) factors?

The project will focus on the first five years of life, examining child health outcomes, developmental outcomes (e.g. cognitive skills in the first year of school), health service use (e.g hospitalisation rates) and associated costs.

Situational Analysis of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) in Sri Lanka

FGM/C is a cultural practice associated with adverse health outcomes that involves the partial or complete removal of the external female genitalia or injury to the genitalia. FGM/C is a form of violence against women and girls. There are no laws that specifically outlaw FGM/C in Sri Lanka and no national prevalence data. There is a lack of evidence about this practice to inform prevention efforts required to achieve the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) target 5.3.2, which focuses on the elimination of all harmful practices, including FGM/C.

UTS staff involved: Professor Angela Dawson

Abortion and women’s health

High quality reproductive healthcare is based on research and puts the patient at the centre of decision making. Research studies have come to different conclusions on the question of whether there is a link between early abortion and mental health. The most recent review of all quality research studies was done in 2017 by Horvath and others. This review found that there was no difference in the rates of depression between women who had an abortion and those who were denied one. Women who were denied an abortion had higher rates of anxiety than those who were able to access an abortion. Since this review was published other research has been done that has studied abortion and mental health. This provided a chance to see if there was any new data.

We reviewed all new studies to see if women of reproductive age (14 to 49 years) who obtained an early induced abortion (<14 weeks) for an unintended pregnancy were more likely to have adverse mental health outcomes compared to women who continued the pregnancy to birth. We found five studies that had were not in previous reviews (1-5). But, all of these studies could not be included because they were poor quality.

Our new review of the literature does not provide any new data to show that there is a link between abortion and adverse mental health risks. Our findings are the same as the reviews with high quality studies, which show that if a women has an early abortion there is little or no increased risk of mental health issues.

There is a need for well-designed research that informs best practice and supports women centred decision making about pregnancy care.

UTS staff involved: Professor Angela Dawson