Research on Low Birth Weight at the Clínic

Research activity on Low Birth Weight is carried out at the Institut d’Investigacións Biomèdiques August Pi i Sunyer (IDIBAPS). Specifically, in the Foetal and Perinatal Medicine group.

This activity began in 1982 with a doctoral thesis that won the Ordesa Research Prize in 1984.

Subsequently, another doctoral thesis was carried out on smoking in pregnant women as a cause of LBWGA (1995). Neonatal morbidity and mortality of premature infants under 32 weeks with LBWGA was analysed for all the cases (2,941) treated between 1995 and 2011, both at the Hospital Clínic and at the Hospital Sant Joan de Déu in Barcelona (which has the same neonatal database). Both hospitals also joined together to determine which neonatal or foetal growth curves from 8,808 cases best discriminated for mortality in LBWGA between 2001 and 2015. In 2014, changes in LBWGA neuroimaging were investigated and in 2016 the influence of breastfeeding on cardiovascular function and home care for LBWGA was studied.

The Clínic is part of the SEN1500 Group in the Spanish Neonatology Association through which it participates in the international networks of the VON (USA) and iNeo (Canada). The results of the analysis of children under 1,500 g treated in the main Spanish hospitals (about 2,700 each year) include their subdivision, according to whether or not they were LBWGA at birth.