Funding for project to improve pregnancy monitoring with new placenta research

The project will integrate cutting-edge biology, advanced imaging, and novel monitoring technologies to reveal new insights into healthy and high-risk pregnancies and allow early detection of problems.

A team led by the University of Nottingham, and involving Nottingham Trent University, has received a Wellcome Discovery Award for the work.

During pregnancy, the fetus depends on an intimate physiological relationship with its mother, which from the second trimester, is increasingly mediated by the placenta. While long-term adaptations to changes in supply and demand are well described, short-term interactions are less examined.

Professor Penny Gowland from the School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Nottingham is leading the project, she said: “There are no comprehensive investigations into how fetal-placental–maternal communication varies with circumstance, or whether it can reveal an inability to respond physiologically under stress. We think that impaired adaptive responses may contribute to unexplained stillbirths, particularly at late gestation.”

The team which also brings together experts from Makerere University in Uganda, , the University of Manchester, and the Essential Baby Company, will characterise the dynamic interactions across different settings (including high and low-resourced contexts) in both apparently healthy and compromised pregnancies.

Physiological data will be gathered using the novel Pregnancy Activity Monitor (PAM- recording fetal heart rate, fetal movement, placental and uterine contractions and placental oxygenation), MRI and ultrasound.

The team will also develop a dynamic mathematical model of placental function, uncover the key drivers of placental dysfunction, identify new early-warning biomarkers and generate individualised estimates of placental efficiency.

Dr Qimei Zhang, a researcher in Nottingham Trent University’s School of Science and Technology, said: “Pregnancy is a dynamic process, yet much of our current monitoring provides only snapshots in time. Optical fibre sensing offers an exciting new opportunity to change this by enabling highly sensitive, continuous and non-invasive monitoring of physiological changes during pregnancy.

“Our ambition is to harness this technology to better understand placental function and fetal movement, ultimately opening new possibilities for earlier detection of changes and more personalised care for mothers and their babies.”

Professor Penny Gowland continues: “Advances in MRI technologies is allowing us to push the boundaries of what is possible with imaging, we have already revealed new insights into placental contractions in pregnancy and by further characterising the function of the placenta and integrating new technologies and modelling we can build an even fuller picture that we can translate into new tools to effectively monitor pregnancy and identify problems sooner.

“The findings will ultimately enable the creation of an at home version of PAM that provides real time monitoring to identify at risk pregnancies and improve prenatal care worldwide.”