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Research

Maternal mental disorders have been associated with adverse perinatal outcomes such as low birthweight and preterm birth, although these links have been examined rarely among Australian Aboriginal populations. We aimed to evaluate the association between maternal mental disorders and adverse perinatal outcomes among Aboriginal births.

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Global food systems are a central issue for personal and planetary health in the Anthropocene. One aspect of major concern is the dramatic global spread of ultra-processed convenience foods in the last 75 years, which is linked with the rising human burden of disease and growing sustainability and environmental health challenges.

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High-frequency oscillatory ventilation (HFOV) is an established mode of respiratory support in the neonatal intensive care unit. Large clinical trial data is based on first intention use in preterm infants with acute respiratory distress syndrome. Clinical practice has evolved from this narrow population. HFOV is most often reserved for term and preterm infants with severe, and often complex, respiratory failure not responding to conventional modalities of respiratory support.

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Healthy Environments And Lives (HEAL) is the Australian national research network established to support improvements to health, the Australian health system, and the environment in response to the unfolding climate crisis. The HEAL Network comprises researchers, community members and organisations, policymakers, practitioners, service providers, and other stakeholders from diverse backgrounds and sectors.

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Limited studies have described parenteral nutrition (PN) practices and clinical outcomes in term and late preterm infants. The aim of this study was to describe the current practice of PN in term and late preterm infants and their short-term clinical outcomes.

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Recurrences frequently occur following surgical removal of primary tumors. In many cancers, adjuvant therapies have limited efficacy. Surgery provides access to the tumor microenvironment, creating an opportunity for local therapy, in particular immunotherapy, which can induce local and systemic anti-cancer effects.

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Preterm infants are at increased risk for invasive neonatal bacterial infections. S. epidermidis, a ubiquitous skin commensal, is a major cause of late-onset neonatal sepsis, particularly in high-resource settings. The vulnerability of preterm infants to serious bacterial infections is commonly attributed to their distinct and developing immune system.

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Inguinal hernia surgery is one of the most common electively performed surgeries in infants. The common nature of inguinal hernia combined with the high-risk population involving a predominance of preterm infants makes this a particular area of interest for those concerned with their perioperative care. Despite a large volume of literature in the area of infant inguinal hernia surgery, there remains much debate amongst anesthetists, surgeons and neonatologists regarding the optimal perioperative management of these patients.

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Parent-infant interactions provide the foundation for the development of infant socioemotional wellbeing. Preterm birth can have a substantial, and often detrimental, impact on the quality of early parent-infant interactions. Sensory processing difficulties, common in preterm infants, are further associated with poorer interaction quality.

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The way the immune system operates differs between males and females. This is due to both differential expression of immune-related genes from the sex chromosomes as well as the immune modulatory properties of sex hormones. Together, these effects contribute to a skewed prevalence of disease and disease course between males and females, including allergic-, infectious-, autoimmune-, and cancerous disease.

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Evidence indicates that multistrain probiotics benefit preterm infants more than single-strain (SS) probiotics. We assessed the effects of SS versus triple-strain (TS) probiotic supplementation (PS) in extremely preterm (EP) infants.

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Developing an effective therapy to overcome carbapenemase-positive Klebsiella pneumoniae (CPKp) is an important therapeutic challenge that must be addressed urgently. Here, we explored a Ca-EDTA combination with aztreonam or ceftazidime-avibactam in vitro and in vivo against diverse CPKp clinical isolates.

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Limited evidence suggests that airway epithelial structure and function is disrupted in very preterm infants; however, the epithelial morphology and physiology has not been well characterised following discharge from neonatal intensive care. This study aimed to characterise the nasal airway epithelium from 1-year-old survivors of very preterm birth.

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Early onset Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs), including obesity, allergies, and mental ill-health in childhood, present a serious and increasing threat to lifelong health and longevity. The ORIGINS Project (ORIGINS) addresses the urgent need for multidisciplinary efforts to understand the detrimental multisystem impacts of modern environments using well-curated large-scale longitudinal biological sample collections.

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Preterm birth is associated with a 3.3-fold increased likelihood of autism diagnosis, with lower gestational age conferring higher likelihood. In Australia, autism is typically diagnosed at around age four, potentially missing the optimal neuroplasticity window before age two. The Social Attention and Communication Surveillance-Revised (SACS-R) tool identifies early autism signs in children aged 11-30 months, enabling pre-emptive intervention.

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COVID-19 forced healthcare systems to make unprecedented changes in clinical care processes. The authors hypothesized that the COVID-19 pandemic adversely impacted timely access to care, perioperative processes, and clinical outcomes for pediatric patients undergoing primary appendectomy.

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Many survivors of preterm birth (<37 weeks gestation) have lifelong respiratory deficits, the drivers of which remain unknown. Influencers of pathophysiological outcomes are often detectable at the gene level and pinpointing these differences can help guide targeted research and interventions. This study provides the first transcriptomic analysis of primary nasal airway epithelial cells in survivors of preterm birth at approximately 1 year of age.

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Despite the medical and surgical improvements of paediatric burn injuries, burn injuries can be a painful and traumatic experience for the child and their family. It is therefore important to explore the experiences of caregivers who support their child throughout the burn journey. Thus, the purpose of this study was to explore the traumatic nature of paediatric burns on the family from a caregiver's perspective.

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Data on static compliance of the chest wall (Ccw) in preterm infants are scarce. We characterized the static compliance of the lung and Ccw to determine their relative contribution to static compliance of the respiratory system in very preterm infants at 36 wk postmenstrual age. We also aimed to investigate how these compliances were influenced by the presence of bronchopulmonary dysplasia and impacted breathing variables.