Premmies to test power of probiotics
01 January 0001
Some of Western Australia’s tiniest babies are helping to test the gut-boosting potency of probiotics, as part of exciting new research that will determine whether increasing supplementation enhances their gut health, thereby reducing their risk of serious health complications.
A 2023 Telethon Trust Research Fellowship is enabling King Edward Memorial Hospital neonatal registrar Dr Chandra Rath to lead the project which could change the lives of the more than 500 Western Australians born at less than 32 weeks’ gestation every year.
‘These babies are our most vulnerable patients,’ he explains.
‘They are at high risk of poor nutrition, leaving them susceptible to a host of serious – and potentially life-threatening – health conditions such as late-onset sepsis and a devastating intestinal disease (necrotising enterocolitis) to which an imbalance of...
