New international trial, Bump2Baby and Me, kicks off at National Maternity Hospital, Dublin
Dublin – The University College Dublin (UCD) research team alongside National Maternity Hospital staff will begin recruiting pregnant women to the exciting new Bump2Baby and Me trial this week. Bump2Baby and Me will run across four maternity hospitals in Ireland, Australia, Spain and the UK and aims to support women at high risk of developing gestational diabetes with healthy eating and physical activity advice. It also aims to provide hospitals and healthcare service providers with a novel, low-cost solution to providing women with better and more tailored support during this important time in their lives.
“We are very excited to be finally delivering our ‘trial baby’, it has been a long pregnancy period!” said Dr Sharleen O’Reilly, Principal Investigator, UCD. Gestational diabetes is diabetes that only happens in pregnancy but 18% of pregnancies are affected by it, making it the most common pregnancy complication women are likely to experience. Women who have had gestational diabetes are ten times more likely to develop type 2 diabetes than women who have not had it. The longer-term effects are not only seen in women; there is an almost 60% increased risk of overweight or obesity in children whose mothers have had gestational diabetes. The innovative trial hopes to contribute to the early prevention of diabetes, overweight and obesity as well as other chronic diseases like heart disease. “Pregnancy is an ideal time to start working with women and develop healthy habits that can last a lifetime” Dr O’Reilly added. “Bump2Baby and Me will work with women through most of their pregnancy and all of the important first year.”
The Bump2Baby and Me trial sits at the heart of a large, five-year EU funded project called Impact Diabetes Bump2Baby, which began in January 2020. The project’s ultimate aim is to deliver an implementable solution for hospitals that better supports women during pregnancy and the critical first year after birth, via remote health coaching on healthy eating, physical activity, feeding and active play.
The four maternity hospitals involved in Bump2Baby and Me are the National Maternity Hospital, Dublin; Monash Health in Melbourne, Australia, Granada University Hospitals in Granada, Spain; and Southmeade Hospital in Bristol, UK. A total of 800 women will be recruited across the four siteskicking off with the National Maternity Hospital, Dublin on 9th February, and closely followed by Monash Health in Melbourne. The trial will use a quick screening tool to identify high risk women in early pregnancy. Interested women will then be randomly assigned to one of two groups to test two different ways to provide women with support and information.
The Bump2Baby and Me trial is based on evidence of what works in earlier trials, led by UCD and other project partners, from over 2,500 women in different countries. The trial will gather a wide variety of information on the health of mothers and babies involved but also on how the trial fits within current maternity services and what women think about it. This information will help in generating a robust evidence base, which is critical to enable wider rollout of Bump2Baby and Me to more maternity services in the long run.
Impact Diabetes Bump2Baby and Me is a five-year project with a total grant of €4million from the European Commission’s Horizon 2020 programme and AU$500,000 from the National Health and Medical Research Council, Australia. To keep up to date with the project’s progress follow @bump2babyandme on Twitter.
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