Summary: Some babies require emergency surgery on their tummy in the first few months of life. This is most commonly because they were born prematurely and developed a bowel problem (called NEC) or a blockage of the bowel. As part of this surgery, the ends of the bowel may be brought to the skin surface (called a stoma) to divert stool into a bag. The stoma allows time for the bowel to rest and recover and...

Summary: The two most common congenital abdominal wall defects (AWD) are gastroschisis and omphalocele. Prenatal detection is often possible and the defects are differentiated by the presence or absence of a sac around the eviscerated organs. A omphalocele occurs in 0.6-4.8 in 10,000 live births compared to 4.5 in 10,000 live births with gastroschisis. In the last years a rising incidence of gastroschisis ...

Summary: Infants with congenital gastrointestinal anomalies (CGIA) experience multiple physiologic stressors, including neonatal surgery, early in life during an essential time of growth and development. Early physiologic stressors such as inadequate nutrition have been linked to altered growth patterns and neurodevelopmental delays later in life. In other groups of at-risk infants, early body composition ...

Summary: Gastroschisis is a rare congenital malformation consisting in a right para-umbilical defect of the abdominal wall leading to an evisceration of the abdominal content. About 25% of the cases are associated with intestinal malformation, leading to an increase in peri-natal morbidity and mortality. No prospective study has been able to definitely describe predictive factors for complicated gastroschi...

Summary: This study is a multi-centre interventional study at seven tertiary paediatric surgery centres in Ghana, Zambia, Malawi and Tanzania aimed at reducing mortality from gastroschisis.

Summary: Each year world-wide, 2.5 million fetuses die unexpectedly in the last half of pregnancy, 25,000 in the United States, making fetal demise ten-times more common than Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. This study will apply a novel type of non-invasive monitoring, called fetal magnetocardiography (fMCG) used thus far to successfully evaluate fetal arrhythmias, in order to discover potential hidden elect...

Summary: The objective of this study is to investigate the hypothesis that delivery at 35 0/7- 35 6/7 weeks in stable patients with gastroschisis is superior to observation and expectant management with a goal of delivery at 38 0/7 - 38 6/7 weeks. To test this hypothesis, we will complete a randomized, prospective, multi-institutional trial across NAFTNet-affiliated institutions. Patients may be enrolled i...

Summary: Gastroschisis is a rare abdominal wall defect. Though survival rate is high, there are significant complications related to feeding intolerance and infections. Recently, oral care with breast milk has been studied in extremely premature infants and has been shown to improve both feeding tolerance and protect against infection. Though only studied in premature infants, it is likely that other popul...