Detailed Breathing Study
Adult lung problems can have their origins in infancy and childhood. However, we only have a limited knowledge about the effect of being born extremely early on lung problems in later life.
To help us understand more about the EPICure children’s lungs we carried out some simple breathing tests on all the children we saw. In addition to this, children’s lung specialists at Great Ormond Street Hospital in London joined the EPICure team and offered some more detailed tests.
This Detailed Breathing Study was lead by Professor Janet Stocks. All the EPICure children who live near to London were offered the chance to go to the children’s lung function laboratory at Great Ormond Street Hospital and the Institute of Child Health. They have some very sophisticated tests that gave much more information about their children’s lungs. The children were able to take a friend with them for these breathing tests, which most children found fun to do.
What were we hoping to find out?
We wanted to find out more detailed information about the lungs of a sample of the EPICure children measured at approximately 10 years old.
To see how illnesses and treatments on the baby unit (e.g. duration of ventilation, oxygen, steroid use) predict breathing problems at 10 years old.
To look at why children who have been born prematurely have more breathing problems than those who were not born early.