Respiratory Health in Childhood (RHIO). V 1.0
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Respiratory Health in Childhood (RHIO). Long-term follow-up questionnaire for Baby Biome Study participants
IRAS ID
305551
Contact name
Nigel Field
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Research Governance Manager. University College London
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 4 months, 0 days
Research summary
When babies are born, they immediately encounter millions of microorganisms, mainly bacteria. These microorganisms are referred to as the microbiota, and the gut has the highest concentration of anywhere in the body. Events like being born by caesarean-section can disrupt the normal transfer of bacteria from the mother to the baby, and this might be important for immune development. However, we still don’t understand if the gut microbiota affects health in the long term.
The scientific aim of this project is to explore whether disruption of the new-born’s gut microbiota during the first month of life influences respiratory disease in the first five years of life. We plan to do this by following up new-born babies originally enrolled in a UK birth cohort, Baby Biome Study (BBS), using self-administered one-time electronic parental questionnaires, in this follow-up study called Respiratory Health in Childhood (RHIO).
BBS enrolled 3476 mother-baby pairs in three UK hospitals between January 2016 and December 2017. Clinical information on study participants was collected at delivery and stool samples were collected from babies during the first months of life. Mothers consented to follow-up for them and their babies. Obtained stool samples have been processed using modern genomic sequencing techniques, enabling us a very thorough understanding of their gut microbiota composition.
We aim to send the electronic questionnaires to families during July 2022. New-borns originally enrolled in BBS will be 4 to 6 years old by then. Postal letters will be sent to mothers enrolled in BBS, which a QR code that will allow them to access the electronic questionnaire.Two follow-up texts (with a link to the questionnaire) will also be sent. The respiratory diseases we aim to capture include lower respiratory tract infection, wheezing and asthma as well as atopic symptoms including eczema and allergies.
REC name
Wales REC 6
REC reference
22/WA/0287
Date of REC Opinion
16 Sep 2022
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion