Eligibility

Recruitment to the study is now closed. We recruited babies who were born early and also a group of full-term babies, born close to their due date. Here you can find out more about who was eligible to sign-up for the study.

Who joined the study?

Over 400 babies who were born at the Simpson Centre for Reproductive Health joined the study.

The main focus of the study is premature babies (called ‘cases’). Babies born at less than 32 weeks were eligible to take part.

We also recruited a comparison group of babies born at full term (called ‘controls’). This means babies who were born at more than 36 weeks were eligible to take part. We know that even though there are more babies born roughly “on time” than babies born early, it is always harder to find families in this group who are willing to take part in research. 

Some babies are not  able to take part if they are born with certain conditions such as a heart defect, brain or spine defect or Downs Syndrome.   Also, babies who develop certain conditions during pregnancy are not able to take part. Finally, babies who cannot have an MRI scan (for example if they have an implanted medical device) are not able to take part.