Welcome to BaBi East London!

The BaBi East London team is a group of researchers based at Barts Health NHS Trust, in the heart of East London. Within the trust, we care for about 17,000 pregnant women every year, and about 70% of them are from non-white ethnic groups. Women from marginalised backgrounds are at higher risk of complications during pregnancy (such as diabetes, hypertension or birth complications), and we are well placed to find more about reasons for this by making better use of existing health data.

For our project, we will aim to ask pregnant women for permission to use the leftover biological samples that they already routinely provide during pregnancy. By linking insights from these samples to routine data, we hope to learn more about the connections between pre-existing health conditions, ethnicity, and health outcomes for the mother and baby – for instance how mothers do at childbirth as well as in the longer term, and how their babies’ health develops. Ultimately, this research will be the basis for future improvements in maternity care with a focus on diversity and equity.

Check out the BaBi East London website here: www.barc-research.org/babi-eastlondon