Accelerating Translational Research to Integrate Maternal, Fetal and Infant Health
openNICHD - Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development
SUMMARY
Relevant to NICHD’s mission is prioritizing research to improve the health of American children and
families. Similarly, reducing the prevalence of childhood chronic diseases by understanding and diminishing
contributions to disease risk is a goal of the Make American Healthy Again initiative. The proposed conference
is unique in that it focuses specifically on the relatively new field of prenatal pediatrics; that is, optimizing fetal
well-being through maternal-fetal research and fetal interventions to improve outcomes in the neonatal period
and beyond. Our MPI team at the Prenatal Pediatrics Institute (Adre duPlessis, MBChB) and the Developing
Brain Institute (Catherine Limperopoulos, PhD, and Katherine L. Wisner, MD, MS) at Children’s National
Hospital (CNH) has evolved a progressive model of in utero pediatric care to underscore the importance of
pregnancy and the womb as the time and place where childhood chronic disease first takes hold. The fetal
environmental milieu has a key role in defining the trajectory of life-long health. Our objective is to concentrate
on the potential of prenatal pediatrics as a powerful conceptual framework to guide research to reduce the
escalating rates of childhood chronic diseases. Examining the potential dietary, behavioral, medical, and socio-
environmental factors associated with childhood chronic disease is crucial to encourage interdisciplinary,
evidence-based research to inform interventions, societal change, and policy.
This conference was developed with the goal of reducing institutional and research compartmentalization.
We plan two days of presentations by speakers representing a broad array of prenatal pediatrics/neonatology
and subspecialties, maternal-fetal medicine, perinatal mental health, translational scientists in non-invasive
technologies to evaluate fetal health, genetics/epigenetics, nutrition, infectious disease and the microbiome,
public health, artificial intelligence and data science. Conference meals include extended periods of time for
lunch and a dinner to support delegate networking. A final panel including the MPIs and Dr. Yoel Sadovsky will
synthesize the conference proceedings and generate recommendations to advance the field. Manuscripts will
be developed from the lectures for publication in an issue of the journal Seminars in Perinatology focusing on
the theme, Translational Research to Integrate Maternal, Fetal and Infant Health.
Up to $10K
health research