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Feeding Outcomes and Influencing Factors in Infants with Hypoxic Ischaemic Encephalopathy
Safe People
Organisation name
Newcastle University
Applicant name(s)
Chris Gale
Sarah Edney
Funders/ Sponsors
Wellcome 4Ward North PhD FellowshipNewcastle University
DEA accredited researcher?
No
Safe Projects
Project ID
6279-22C5-F1C3-5312-052A-7F46
Lay summary
Hypoxic ischaemic encephalopathy (HIE) is the most common form of neonatal brain injury in term-born infants. HIE is associated with feeding disorders that can affect child health, development, and quality of life, and lead to high use of health services. At present we do not have sufficient information about how many children with HIE develop feeding disorders, how HIE affects feeding and swallowing, how HIE-related feeding disorders develop and change over time, or how HIE-related feeding disorders impact the child and family. This means that parents of infants with HIE cannot access reliable information about whether their child is likely to have difficulty feeding or how their child’s feeding abilities may change, and reduces their ability to access proactive support and feeding interventions. Additionally, not having this information prevents researchers from being able to design effective feeding interventions for HIE or to design robust studies to determine the best ways to manage HIE-related feeding disorders. This study is one part of a mixed methods PhD project that aims to understand HIE-related feeding disorders and identify factors are associated with positive and negative feeding outcomes. The study will use the NNRD to analyse feeding outcomes among infants admitted to neonatal units in England and Wales with HIE in the past 10 years to determine how many infants with HIE have feeding disorders at the point of discharge from the neonatal unit, and identify infant and environmental factors that might be able to prevent or reduce HIE-related feeding disorders. These findings will be used to provide parent-friendly information about HIE and feeding, plus will be used to help develop feeding interventions that are specifically aimed at helping improve feeding and support families who are affected by HIE.
Public benefit statement
HIE-related feeding disorders are currently very poorly understood, with existing information coming from the pre-cooling era or from small single-site studies. This study will identify the feeding-related needs of infants with HIE at the point of discharge from the neonatal unit, including variations between regions and year of birth. It will also identify potentially modifiable factors that influence feeding outcomes that can be used for feeding intervention development and proactive family support. This data is needed to inform health service planning (e.g. neonatal feeding therapy service, outpatient feeding services, HIE-specific follow up pathways) and future research into preventing, reducing, and treating HIE-related feedings disorders.
Other approval committees
Project start date
01/11/2022
Project end date
30/04/2023
Latest approval date
24/04/2024
Safe Data
Dataset(s) name
Common Law Duty of Confidentiality
Not applicable
Request frequency
One-off
Release/Access date
15/01/2025
Safe Setting
Access type
Release
How has data been processed to enhance privacy?
Pseudo-anonymised NNRD data, with no identifiable data, will be transferred to Newcastle University, with the linkage identifiers held by the NNRD data owners. Data will be stored securely, in a password-protected format, on Newcastle University’s secure server and only accessible to the research team. Password protected data files will be stored on the secure university storage system and accessed via university desktop computers or encrypted laptops.