What To Expect At Each Appointment

Your first appointment will be when you are between 13-16 weeks pregnant. During this appointment we will explain all aspects of the study, take your blood pressure, temperature, and heart rate, and ask for you to donate some blood, urine, and a self collected vaginal swab.
We try to book you in early for this appointment as we request that you fast for the blood test, if you are comfortable to do so. We will offer you the opportunity to go in our “BODPOD” which is a body composition analysis machine that uses air to calculate your body composition and takes about 3 minutes.
We will schedule your follow-up appointment and give you a sample collection kit to take home in preparation for your next appointment. That is a saliva sample, a toenail sample, and an easy collection stool sample.
We will send you a survey after each appointment, these surveys take between 20-40 minutes to complete. There is a two-week window to complete the survey and it can be saved to come back to if you are unable to complete it in one sitting.

This appointment will be booked when you are between 19-22 weeks pregnant and involves an important ultrasound that is standard in all pregnancy care. This is your “morphology scan”, and the sonographer will be taking a careful look at all your babies organs and body parts. It takes approximately 1 - 1.5 hours to complete the ultrasound. Your partner is welcome to come and see the scan and you will receive some beautiful 4D images in a digital format to take home. Scan results will be sent to your treating doctor or care team.
Following the ultrasound, if you are happy to donate some more samples, we will request a blood sample, a cheek swab, a urine sample, a skin swab, and a small hair sample. We ask that you also bring with you the self collected at-home samples - toenail, saliva and stool. Finally, your blood pressure and heart rate and another quick body composition in the BODPOD.
If your partner or baby’s biological father is interested and willing to participate, they are welcome to go in the BODPOD, and we will request similar sample donations.
Again, a survey will be sent to you following this appointment as well as a one-off survey if your partner/biological father has agreed to participate.

This appointment will be in the morning, if you are happy to fast for a blood test. This will be followed by a growth ultrasound scan of your baby which takes approximately 30 minutes. Samples at this appointment include the BODPOD and urine sample, as well as your blood pressure and heart rate.
We will send home with you another self-collection kit for saliva and easy collection stool sample which you bring back at your 36 week appointment.
An online survey link will be given to you for a short survey.

No fasting is required for this appointment. We will perform the last growth ultrasound scan on your baby which takes approximately half an hour. This is followed by the BODPOD, blood sample, cheek swab, urine sample, self collected vaginal swab, blood pressure and heart rate. We will invite you to bring in the at-home sample kits given to you at your last appointment- saliva and stool.
At this appointment we will give you a business card that says you are part of NEW1000, which you can take with you to birth suite and give to your Midwife. This is to allow us to be notified once your baby is born.
We will also give you a take-home sample collection kit for collecting a skin and vaginal swab on day you go into labour if you are comfortable to do so. If you are intending to breast feed, we will show you how to collect a tiny sample of your colostrum (first breast milk).

As mentioned above, we hope to have collected small samples from your placenta and some cord blood after birth, with the help of the business card as a reminder for your Birth Suite Midwife to call us. Once you have done the self-collected skin and vaginal swab you can hand these to your Birth Suite Midwife and they will put all the samples together for us to collect.
Once notified of your birth, one of the Research Midwives will help to collect a cheek and saliva swab from baby. We will also provide a special nappy for stool and urine sample from baby.
If you are intending to breastfeed, we request a tiny amount of your colostrum (first milk). Our Research midwives can assist with all sample collections and, of course, you and your baby’s comfort and health is our highest priority. We will always ask your permission and work with you to make sure you are comfortable with these processes.