The UK 22 Week Study

Summary

In the UK, babies born at 22 weeks of pregnancy have only been offered survival-focused care (sometimes called resuscitation or stabilisation) since 2019. Very few babies are born this early each year and sadly a lot of them do not survive. Therefore, healthcare teams don't have much information about this new population of tiny babies and there is much to learn about how they respond, the problems they face and the best way for intensive care units to look after them.

This study aims to collect information available in babies' medical notes, analyse it and share learning to start improving this knowledge. There will be no changes to the babies' care, only observation of what happens.

A small team of doctors and nurse practitioners who have/are looking after a baby, will put a small amount of selected information, without 'identifiers' such as the baby's name, date of birth or hospital number, onto a secure database platform at Imperial College London (a university).

Researchers will analyse the information from all the babies around the UK together to look for trends and to describe common things that happen to them, as well as their outcomes.

Parents will be made aware this information is being collected and used through a leaflet. It will not be possible to identify an individual baby in the results.

The investigators are aiming for around 45 hospitals across the UK to participate. Babies born at 22 weeks gestation, who are attended to at birth by a neonatal team (or admitted) at an intensive care site over a 12-month period will be included. While collecting this information will not impact the babies included, it may help the treatment of babies born early in the future and give families more accurate information about what they might expect to happen.

Conditions

• Extreme Prematurity - Less Than 28 Weeks
• Infant, Extremely Premature
• Neonatal and Perinatal Conditions
• Intensive Care, Neonatal

Interventions

OTHER

Not applicable (observational study)

Not applicable (observational study)

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Chelsea and Westminster NHS Foundation Trust

  collaborator OTHER

• NeoTRIPs - British Association of Perinatal Medicine associated group of neonatal trainee-led research, education and QI network

  collaborator UNKNOWN

• CW+ Charity

  collaborator OTHER

• Kids Intensive Care and Decision Support & Neonatal Transfer Service (KIDSNTS), Birmingham Women's and Children's NHS Foundation Trust

  collaborator UNKNOWN

• Imperial College London

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Cheryl WS Battersby · Imperial College London

Eligibility

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2025-06-01

Primary Completion

2027-06-30

Completion

2027-12-31

Countries

• United Kingdom

Study Locations