Our colleague Dr Gertrude Namazzi, in her final year doctoral studies has been researching on neurodevelopment outcomes of preterm babies during infancy in eastern Uganda. We had brief interview with her on her work:
What is neurodevelopment in simple terms?
The simplest way to describe is development of the brain. The most critical time for brain development is the first 1000 days of life, from conception to the second birthday. This starts before birth and anything like disease, harmful substances, trauma, and the like can affect a child’s neurodevelopment during pregnancy and early years, and this can affect them for the rest of their lives. Factors that affect neurodevelopment can be biological or environmental, ranging from nurturing to exposure to harmful substances. Moreover, biomedical factors have been identified as one of the major risk factors for neurodevelopmental disability.
Briefly tell us about your work/study, what it entailed and why did you focus on neurodevelopment?
Neurodevelopment has been thoroughly studied in developed countries but barely so in low- and middle-income countries yet it is a very critical area for human capital development that requires a lot of attention. Most of the developmental disabilities are in these countries where a lot of support is needed because they have higher numbers of malnutrition and other biological effects, coupled with poverty thus increasing the cases of neurodevelopment disabilities. Therefore, there is need for studies like the one I conducted to inform programmes in Africa to curb the challenges that arise when neurodevelopment is neglected.
How will the findings from this study benefit the people in the community?
Preterm babies are the most vulnerable they are at a great risk of mortality and co-morbidities including neurodevelopmental disabilities and they need a lot of support. Therefore, there is need for information from different studies like this one mainly to inform programmes on training and preparing caregivers focusing on risk factors associated with poor growth and neurodevelopmental disability. The care givers are usually strained with the birth of a preterm baby yet they are never prepared and this study can inform programmes for equipping caregivers with all the necessary skills and support to take care of infants especially preterms to prevent the occurrence of retarded neurodevelopment.
What opportunities for change are embedded in this study?
The opportunities for change the study identified or found include Kangaroo Mother Care (KMC) practiced at home after being discharged from the hospital was associated with reduced chances of neurodevelopmental disability for the preterm infants. Moreover, projects focused on improving nutrition are needed to support mothers and care givers on how to feed children in their early years of life in order to curb neurodevelopment problems.
What action points can be picked up from your work, recommendations to the different actors and suggested areas for further research.
There is need to study the heavy metals, their prevalence and effect on the human brain development in low resource settings. There is also a need for studies that focus on studying the preterm babies at the time of birth to identify and address in time the challenges/complications such as bleeding in the brain.
About Dr. Gertrude Namazzi: She holds a Master of Public Health degree and a bachelor’s degree in Medicine and Surgery (MBChB) of Makerere University, Uganda. She is a Research Fellow at Makerere University School of Public Health in the department of Health Policy Planning and Management, and a member of the Centre of Excellence for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health. Gertrude has expertise in maternal and newborn implementation research ranging from community mobilization for institutional service utilization to health systems strengthening for improved quality of care. She is currently working with the USAID funded Maternal Child Health and Nutrition Activity, implemented in Uganda by FHI 360. Gertrude is in the last year of her PhD programme, under Makerere University with support from Karolinska Institutet, funded by SIDA project. Her PhD thesis is about developmental disability in early childhood.