Active clinical trials for "Premature Birth"

The purpose of this study is to determine if an investigational drug can reduce the burden of chronic lung disease in extremely premature infants, as compared to extremely premature infants receiving standard neonatal care alone.

Intraventricular hemorrhage (IVH) is the most commonly recognized cerebral lesion on ultrasound in extremely preterm infants. Papile classification is commonly used to grade the severity of IVH. Grade III-IV IVH and other lesions noted on ultrasound including periventricular leukomalacia (pvl) porencephaly, and ventriculomegaly are well Documented to be associated with adverse neurodevelopmental outcomes. However, the true impact of lower-grade IVH on the neurodevelopment of these extreme preterm infants has not been well described. Also Neurodevelopmental outcome for neonatal non-traumatic Intra Cranial Hemorrhage (ICH) is not well established. The aim of this study is to look retrospectively at babies with neonatal IVH or ICH and follow their radiological, cognitive, motor and functional outcomes. The study will focus on postnatal files, and on images performed as part of the child's follow-up during hospitalization and after discharge.

The purpose of this study is to examine if infants are more likely to suffer from respiratory complications during their first year of life due to being born premature.

Prematurity is a major risk factor for poor neurodevelopmental outcomes. The clinical and neuroradiological evaluations proposed during the neonatal period to assess the developmental prognosis of children born prematurely are not sensitive and nor specific. The analysis of spontaneous motor activity by Prechtl's method has a better predictive value but is currently unfeasible in clinical routine. The study's principal objective is to describe the standardized values of complexity, variability, and fluidity of general movements.

Pregnant women with short cervical length (<25 mm) in second-trimester ultrasonographic assessment are at high risk for preterm birth, a major cause of perinatal mortality and morbidity worldwide. Some of these short-cervix women proceed to a more advanced stage manifested as a painless prematurely dilated cervix in the second trimester. It is not fully understood why some women have short cervical length or prematurely dilated cervix (cervical insufficiency), although evidence is mounting that there is an association between short cervical length and infection by microorganisms. The investigators hypothesize that the cervical microorganisms in pregnant women with a shortened or dilated cervix are different, compared with those in women with normal cervical length and a closed cervix.

Single-channel electrocardiograms (lead I of 12-lead surface ECG; 30 seconds) will be collected from subjects/patients at 11 clinical centers in Germany to train an Artificial Intelligence in the automatic diagnosis of regular and irregular heart rhythms. Heart rhythms of interest are normal sinus rhythm (SR), atrial fibrillation (AF), atrial premature beats (APBs), ventricular premature beats (VPBs), and nonsustained ventricular tachycardia (VT). Per diagnosis, 20,000 ECGs are required, for a total of 100,000 ECGs to be obtained from approximately 10,000 subjects/patients.

This is an observational, proof-of-concept, feasibility study where 50 preterm infants with gestational age < 32+0 weeks will be recruited from the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) at the Montreal Children's Hospital. The study's primary objective is to describe the relationship between respiratory acoustics and airflow and determine the reliability of a novel respiratory acoustic sensor at detecting breathing sounds in preterm infants. The study's secondary objectives are: To compare transthoracic impedance, respiratory inductive plethysmography and an inertial measurement unit for the detection of respiratory efforts in preterm infants. To evaluate the feasibility and accuracy of a novel, non-invasive method for continuously detecting and differentiating cardiorespiratory events in preterm infants on CPAP by integrating measurements of respiratory effort with respiratory acoustic monitoring.

The Newborn Infant Parasympathetic Evaluation (NIPE) was developed as a method of analysis of the heart rate variability. The monitor gives a value between 0 (low value of the parasympathetic component) and 100 (high value of the parasympathetic component). So far, the measure of the heart failure variability by using the NIPE in infant born very premature ventilated and sedated in neonatal reanimation has not been realised and validated as an evaluation method of the pain and discomfort related to neonatal care.

Premature infants present with significant oxygenation instability in the form of frequent spontaneous episodes of hypoxemia during the first weeks after birth. These infants are also exposed to hyperoxemia. The objective of this study is to determine the extent to which exposure to frequent episodes of hypoxemia and hyperoxemia in extreme premature infants during the early stages of their evolving lung disease is associated with altered maturation and function of their respiratory control system. This study is part of the Prematurity-Related Ventilatory Control (Pre-Vent): Role in Respiratory Outcomes Clinical Research Centers (CRC) (U01) cooperative program of the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Electric Impedance Tomography (EIT) is a lung monitoring technique based on the injection of small currents and voltage measurements using electrodes on the skin surface generating cross-sectional images representing impedance change in a slice of the thorax. It is a real time, radiation free, non-invasive and portable. Neonatal respiratory distress syndrome (RDS) is a respiratory disorder resulting from immaturity of the lung structure and lack of surfactant. It is one the most common conditions in premature infants. Many of these infants require either invasive or non-invasive respiratory support. The goal of the study is to investigate the dynamic changes in pulmonary aeration during assisted breathing in very low birthweight preterm infants using pulmonary electrical impedance tomography. Currently most widely used methods to assess respiratory lung function are either invasive and/or indirect (ABG, pulse oximetry, transcutaneous pCO2 measurement), lacks temporal resolution (lung ultrasound) or emit ionizing radiation (CT). EIT provides information on regional lung aeration without the aforementioned shortcomings.