MiBirth Study
Background:
Currently only 57% of pregnant women will have an uncomplicated vaginal birth. Many women have an Emergency Caesarean Section or instrumental birth which are more likely to be associated with both short term and long term problems for both mother and baby.
We are currently not very good at predicting which women will have a slow labour and which babies may run into difficulties during labour and will need a birth intervention. We want to be able to better predict birth outcome so that we can discuss this with pregnant women before they go into labour.
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Aim:
We will acquire information about the fetus (baby), the womb and cervix (neck of womb), the placenta, and the maternal pelvis (birth canal) using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), which is often used in antenatal care. We will combine all these image findings with information from ultrasound and with the participant's pregnancy details. We will use the latest data modelling approaches to see which of many factors best predict how a mother gives birth.
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Everything matters; womb, cervix, pelvis, placenta, baby.
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Funders:
The Medical Research Council
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Advisory groups: