A perspective involving a network of academics and clinicians gathered by Dr Alice Collier and Professor Antoine Jerusalem from the University of Oxford has been featured in The Lancet Obstetrics, Gynaecology & Women's Health, highlighting how engineering, data science and clinical expertise could work together to improve safety during childbirth.
The article, “Improving safety during birth: a universal question for a non-universal practice”, brings together insights from an international series of interdisciplinary workshops involving researchers, engineers and clinicians from institutions including the University of Oxford, University College London (UCL), Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Cardiff University, Columbia University and the University of British Columbia.
The perspective examines one of the most fundamental challenges in maternity care: how to define and improve safety during birth. The authors argue that decisions during labour often remain subjective and can vary between healthcare systems and practitioners. They propose that emerging technologies could help provide more objective information to support clinicians and expectant parents.
Drawing on discussions from the jointly led University of Oxford-UCL FOETAL Workshop Series, the article identifies five key areas for future research and innovation: collecting richer, long-term data on maternal and infant outcomes; combining artificial intelligence with mechanistic modelling to better understand causes of birth injury; developing personalised “digital twin” models of mother and baby; creating sensor-enabled clinical tools and training platforms; and establishing more objective methods for assessing birth-related injury and long-term outcomes.
Co-author Dr Alice Collier said:
“The FOETAL workshops brought together clinicians, academics, and industry. Hearing different perspectives changed the way I think about labour research and the collaborations formed resulted in my current postdoctoral project. This perspective piece is a culmination of this dialogue facilitated by the workshop series, which could not have happened without the support of the IAA grant.”
Researchers from Oxford’s Department of Engineering Science played a leading role in the workshop series and the development of the perspective. The workshops brought together expertise from engineering, obstetrics, neonatology and surgery to explore how technological advances could be translated into practical improvements in maternity care.
commented “This paper is the direct product of long discussions between clinicians, academics and researchers from different institutions and countries. Our aim was to develop a roadmap that would take into account all perspectives, clinicians (neonate/paediatrics and obstetrics) and patients (mother and child) alike, while attempting to account for all those differences of care. We certainly hope that the conclusions will be useful to design new studies and clinical protocols.”
The authors conclude that reducing maternal and neonatal morbidity and mortality must remain the central goal of innovation in childbirth care. They call for closer collaboration between engineers, clinicians and researchers to ensure that new technologies are developed with real-world clinical needs in mind and can be adapted for use in diverse healthcare settings around the world
The workshops were funded by an Oxford-led EPSRC IAA grant and UCL’s Wellcome/EPSRC Centre for Interventional and Surgical Sciences.
Read the full article here https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanogw/article/PIIS3050-5038(26)00185-8/fulltext