Next Spark Award Winner

What a marvellous afternoon at Mounts Bay Sailing Club for the Next Spark Pitch event, our key event for World Prematurity Day 2025. We heard from three early career researchers who were shortlisted finalists. They pitched their project ideas to win over the audience.

Dr Gayatri Jape pitched her project Bridging the Gap: A pilot school readiness clinic for preterm born children, followed by Dr Lindsay Kindinger who pitched Vaginal Progesterone for preterm birth prevention: prescription versus reality, and the final pitch of the day was from Dr Rebecca Watkinson with her project Identifying preterm babies at risk of re-hospitalisation with respiratory infections.

Following the fast paced pitches the audience had just 10 minutes to decide which pitch should win and cast their vote. We would have loved to fund all three of these big ideas, but there could be only one winner.

Huge congratulations to Rebecca 👏🏻 We can't wait to see how this work unfolds in 2026!

Preterm Birth Prevention in The Lancet

Lancet paper shows world-first Australian Preterm Birth Prevention Program is working!!!

New data has shown that a world-first initiative to reduce preterm and early term births in Australia has led to a significant decrease in rates of potentially harmful early birth, and improved pregnancy outcomes for women across the country.

Recently published in The Lancet Obstetrics, Gynaecology, & Women’s Health, the study presents detailed outcomes from a six-year preterm birth prevention program first introduced in mid-2018.

Findings have shown that:

From 2018-2021, through activities of the Alliance, rates of preterm birth (birth before 37 weeks) were reduced by approximately 8%. Preterm birth is the leading cause of death and disability in children under the age of 5 worldwide.

From 2021-2024, through the expansion of the Every Week Counts National Preterm Birth Prevention Program, an approximate 10% reduction in the early term ages was achieved (37-39 weeks – a period strongly associated with increased risks of learning and behavioural problems).

“We have shown that using current knowledge we have lowered the rate of harmful early birth by 7-10% which represents approximately 4000 fewer cases of early birth each year across Australia since the program was launched,” Alliance Chair, Professor John Newnham explains.

Community Conversation: Pregnancy perspectives of bacterial infections, screening, and treatment

The University of Western Australia’s perinatal research team wants to hear from mothers - prospective, expecting and current about what they know about bacterial infections and screening during pregnancy. Your experiences and insights will help to shape this research to improve understanding and prevention of infection in early life. This Community Conversation will be exploring understanding, experiences and perspectives on bacterial infection, screening and preventative treatments during pregnancy to gain perspectives, insights and experiences around Group B Streptococcus (GBS), screening and prevention and treatment.

Attendees will be offered an $80 honorarium (gift card) and light refreshments will be provided on the night.

WE SEEK:

• Mothers - prospective, expecting and/or current

• A mother who has had an infection during pregnancy or who has had a baby with an infection while you were pregnant (not a requirement to attend)

DATE: Wednesday 5 November 2025

TIME: 10am – 12pm (AWST/Perth time)

LOCATION: Online

Submit your EOI here: https://bit.ly/42JRZ8r

NEXT SPARK AWARD

The award is designed to support early career researchers in health and medical sciences.  This initiative aims to bring bright ideas to life that benefit children and young people born prematurely and their families.

Expressions of interest open 4/8/25 and close 22/9/25 with finalists receiving individual mentoring in October to perfect their Pitch.  You are all invited to the live Pitch event which will take place at Mounts Bay Sailing Club on November 16.  Make a pledge to support the award and purchase your tickets for the pitch on the ‘Tickets’ link below.  Everyone in attendance will vote and the winner will take home the prize and most importantly have some resources to turn their Next Spark idea into an epic bonfire.

Huge thanks to Graham Hall and Clare Berry who have generously provided their time and expertise to help us bring the Next Spark Award to life.

📆 Sunday, 16 November 2025

🕰️ 4pm - 6pm

🎟️ One beverage on arrival and light refreshments

📍 Mounts Bay Sailing Club, Australia II Drive, Crawley *The function room is only accessible via stairs*

FROG study – Focused consumer Research priorities to improve Outcomes and Guide care for neonates with surgical conditions

Are you a parent or carer of a child who had major surgery as a newborn (within 1 month of birth), or a person with lived experience with major surgery as a newborn?

Please help us with a short survey. The survey is only open for people living in Australia and will be available until 16th September 2025. Previous work by our team has already identified a longlist of research ideas; now we need your help to select the ones that are the most important so that we can focus our research efforts on those.

The survey takes only 3-5 minutes to complete and is anonymous.

Parents, carers, and people with lived experience, please use this link to access our FROG study:

https://redcap.link/FROGConsumerPrioritisation

This will help us to ensure that our research is meaningful and acceptable to all our patients, their families, and clinicians alike. Let us work together to improve the lives of some of our most vulnerable children to give everyone the best chance to have a happy and healthy life.

FROG study – Focused consumer Research priorities to improve Outcomes and Guide care for neonates with surgical conditions