Dr. Ruth Grunau receives a CIHR Spring 2018 Project Grant

Research has shown that >50% of babies born preterm (<37 weeks gestation) show significant developmental problems (cognitive, attention, behaviour, social, motor, academic). Their team will look at the link between the pain-related stress that babies born very preterm (<32 weeks gestation) are subject to throughout their stay in the neonatal intensive care unit, and its impact on the babies’ brain development.

The team will follow children born very preterm (24-32 weeks gestation) until 8 years of age, to determine how the developing brain and stress systems may affect neurodevelopmental outcomes. Their study will also consider the role of parenting and whether effects differ by sex.

The project grant will provide $872,101 over four years.

The Women’s Health Research Institute would like to acknowledge that we are uninvited guests on the unceded ancestral territories of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), Stó:lo, and sel̓íl̓witulh (Tsleil-waututh) Nations.

As a provincial research institute committed to improving the health outcomes of women, including those across the 2SLGBTQIA+ spectrum, we recognize our responsibility in the collective effort towards establishing culturally safe health care systems and services that address health inequities among Indigenous peoples, especially Indigenous women, girls, and Two-spirit peoples.

We encourage all people involved in research to read both the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada: Calls to Action and the In Plain Sight Report, and reflect on ways we can incorporate the recommendations into our work. As we gather in spaces together, we encourage you to reflect on your positionality on these lands and your personal commitments to reconciliation.

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