Active clinical trials for "Birth Weight"

The goal of the study is to find out how much mercury is in the blood, urine, and stools of premature and low birth weight infants who have received standard childhood vaccines that are given to all infants in Argentina. Seventy-two newborn premature and low birth weight infants from Durand Acute General hospital will participate in this study. Each infant in the study will need to make two visits, one at the time of vaccination and another 12 hours to 30 days later. Urine, stool, and a small sample of blood will be taken at each visit.

This study will evaluate the effect of skin antisepsis and/or emollient therapy on bacterial colonization dynamics in very low birth weight, hospitalized infants. Bacterial swabs from 5 body sites will be collected at baseline, day 3, day 8 and day 13 following study arm assignment. Study outcomes include changes in bacterial colony counts, burden of gram-negative and gram-positive pathogens and overall skin score.

Pakistan has the third highest number of neonatal deaths worldwide. During the last two decades (1990-2013), neonatal mortality rate in the country has declined by only 1.0% per year. Severe infection is the second most leading cause of neonatal mortality, account for 28% of all deaths in Pakistan. Majority of neonatal deaths occur in infants who LBW (birth weight <2500g) and LBW comprises of both preterm / small for gestational age newborns. Breastfeeding helps protect infants from infections by serving as a source of nutrition uncontaminated by environmental pathogens. The protection is due to the multiple anti-infective, anti-inflammatory, and immuno regulatory factors transmitted through milk including secretory antibodies, glycan's, Lactoferrin, leukocytes, cytokines & other components produced by the mother's immune system. Reduction in neonatal infections and deaths is the aim of this study. The study is being conducted at the Aga Khan University in collaboration with University of Sydney.

The purpose of this early Phase 2 comparison trial is to evaluate the impact of community health worker (CHW) home visitors on pregnant women and their children in a rural setting in the rural Eastern Cape of South Africa. The intervention provided by the CHWs targets underweight children, mothers living with HIV (MLH), mothers using alcohol, and depressed mothers with the goal of supporting pregnant women to improve birth outcomes, decrease the number of children born with a low birthweight, and develop child caretaking skills over time. UCLA has identified and matched four areas surrounding primary health care clinics: two intervention areas in which this CHW program has been running for one year, and two control areas without the program. Mothers in the research area are followed for one year after giving birth.

Alkaline phosphatase is known to be produced by syncytiotrophoblasts in the placenta and its levels are normally increased in pregnancy. Therefore, it would be reasonable to hypothesize that alkaline phosphatase would be low to low normal in cases of low birth weight / intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR)/ placental insufficiency.

Probiotics are favorable microorganisms that regulate the flora of the gastrointestinal system and stimulate the immune system. Necrotizing enterocolitis incidence is 10-25% in newborn infants whose birth weights are < 1500 gr. Although bifidobacterium and lactobacilli sp. have been used to reduce the incidence of NEC in clinical trials, Saccharomyces boulardii has not been used in the prevention of NEC in very low birth weight infants yet. The objective of this study is to evaluate the efficacy of orally administered S boulardii in reducing the incidence and severity of NEC in very low birth weight infants.

Patent ductus arterioses (PDA) is a major morbidity in preterm infants, especially in extremely premature infants less than 28 weeks. The clinical signs and symptoms of PDA in preterm infants are non specific and insensitive for making an early diagnosis of significant ductal shunting. Functional echocardiography is emerging as a new valuable bedside tool for early diagnosis of hemodynamically significant ductus, even though there are no universally accepted criteria for grading the hemodynamic significance. Echocardiography has also been used for early targeted treatment of ductus arterioses, though the long term benefits of such strategy are debatable. The biomarkers like BNP and N- terminal pro-BNP are currently under research as diagnostic marker of PDA. The primary mode of treatment for PDA is pharmacological closure using cyclo-oxygenase inhibitors with closure rate of 70-80%. Oral ibuprofen is emerging as a better alternative especially in Indian scenario where parenteral preparations of indomethacin are unavailable and side effects are comparatively lesser. Though pharmacological closure of PDA is an established treatment modality, there is still lack of evidence for long term benefits of such therapy as well as there is some evidence for the possible adverse effects like increased ROP and BPD rates, especially if treated prophylactically.The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of oral ibuprofen prophylaxis administrated on the first 24 hours of life and the following two days on hemodynamically significant patent ductus arterioses and its long term effects such as ROP and BPD.

The investigators are developing a research platform capable of improving children's health through the generation of knowledge from analysis of routinely collected data from within and outside the health service. The investigators are using the data that are routinely collected in Wales to answer specific questions about child health and well-being, with the aim of informing policy and practice in Wales, whilst also being internationally relevant. Routinely collected datasets are publicly funded, and have already been incorporated into the Secure Anonymised Information Linkage databank. The investigators are combining these datasets on children from health and social care to establish an anonymised Wales wide Electronic Cohort for Children (WECC). WECC will serve as the platform for future work in translating information into child population health policy. There are 35,000 births in Wales per year, and data are available for the previous ten years. Thus, WECC will be sufficiently powered to answer important social, economic and health policy questions. WECC will also act as a demonstration project which would inform the development of e-cohorts to support translational research across the life course and disease spectrum.

This is a prospective observational study to determine whether there is an association between the presence of platelet-activating factor acetylhydrolase (PAF-AH) gene polymorphisms and the development of chronic lung disease in very low birth wight infants. Infants < 1500 grams at birth who require mechanical ventilation will be enrolled in the first 5 days of life after obtaining informed consent. A total of 1 ml of blood will be drawn and utilized for isolation of DNA for genotyping and for measurement of PAF-AH activity in serum.

This observational study tests the feasibility of enrolling subjects and obtaining an amplitude-integrated electroencephalogram (aEEG) within the first 72 hours of life, a second aEEG recording between 72-168 hours of life, and weekly thereafter up to 36 weeks post-menstrual age. It will enroll 85-100 infants between 401-1,000 grams birth weight OR between 23 0/7 and 28 6/7 weeks gestational age born at the 7 participating NICHD Neonatal Research Network sites.