UAB is the only university to be awarded grants in all three perinatal networks from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development to improve maternal and infant health.

UAB is a member of the NICHD Maternal-Fetal Medicine Units Network, NICHD Neonatal Research Network, and the NICHD Global Network for Women’s and Children’s Health Research.

Over more than two decades, these networks have brought to UAB more than $20 million to fund research for pregnant women and babies, and the new awards total a $1.1 million base per year for the next five years.

For 25 years, UAB’s Division of Neonatology has participated in the NICHD Neonatal Research Network (NRN) and was recently awarded $200,000 in base funds per year, with an additional $500,000 to $1 million per year to conduct additional research in the network.

The NRN was established in conjunction with the MFM Units Network to do similar research in neonatology. Areas addressed by the NRN include trials of therapies for sepsis, intraventricular hemorrhage, chronic lung disease and pulmonary hypertension, as well as the impact of drug exposure on child and family outcomes. Principal investigators for the network, Wally Carlo, M.D., Edwin M. Dixon Endowed Chair in Neonatology, and Namasivayam Ambalavananan, M.D., co-director of the Division of Neonatology, have led nationwide studies on ventilator care, antenatal steroids, chronic lung disease and neurodevelopmental outcomes.

A study in the NICHD NRN published in the NEJM reported that neonatal mortality has been decreased over the last 10 years, including decreases in almost all specific causes of neonatal mortality, because of improvements in care implemented in the NRN centers. A second paper showed that improvements in perinatal care, including obstetrical and neonatal interventions, are increasing survival rates substantially in the most premature babies. Survival rates are substantially increasing among those delivered at a gestational age of 20 weeks to 25 weeks and six days.

Click here to read the full press release on UAB News.