DAME
Diabetes and antenatal milk expression
Diabetes is increasing globally and occurs in 8% of pregnancies. These pregnancies are considered to be at high risk of perinatal complications. Many maternity providers encourage these women to express colostrum before birth to have breast milk available should the infant need supplementary feeding to treat hypoglycaemia.
Evidence for this practice is lacking so we are undertaking a multi-site, two arm randomised controlled trial (RCT) of antenatal expression of colostrum in late pregnancy for women with diabetes in pregnancy to explore the safety and efficacy for mother, fetus and infant. The sites are the Mercy Hospital for Women, the Royal Women's Hospital and Monash Medical Centre. We commenced recruiting women for the trial in June 2011.
Who can be in the study?
Women who are pregnant, without significant medical issues, planning to breastfeed and who have diabetes may be eligible for this study. Approximately 650 women will take part in this study, and this will include women who are booked to have their babies at the Mercy Hospital for Women, the Royal Women's Hospital and Monash Medical Centre.
Interested in participating? Join the DAME trial
Who are the researchers?
Chief Investigators: Prof Della Forster, Maternity and Midwifery Research, The Royal Women's Hospital and MCHR; Dr Susan Jacobs, The Royal Women's Hospital; A/Prof Lisa Amir, MCHR and The Royal Women's Hospital; Prof Peter Davis, The Royal Women's Hospital; Prof Susan Walker, Mercy Hospital for Women and The University of Melbourne; Ms Kerri McEgan, Mercy Hospital for Women; Dr Gillian Opie, Mercy Hospital for Women; Prof Christine East, Monash Medical Centre.
Associate Investigators: Ms Anita Moorhead, The Royal Women's Hospital and MCHR; A/Prof Susan Donath, the Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics Unit (CEBU); Ms Amanda Aylward, The Royal Women's Hospital; Ms Catharine MacNamara, Mercy Hospital for Women; Ms Rachael Ford, The Royal Women's Hospital.
Health Economist: Dr Lisa Gold, Deakin Health Economics, Deakin University.
The DAME Trial Newsletters
Newsletter No 1 - February 2012 [PDF 157KB]
Newsletter No 3 - February 2013 [PDF 281KB]
Who is funding the study?
This is a four year project funded by the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia (NHMRC).
Privacy and access to information
Information collected is kept confidential and the data will be used only for the purposes of this study. We have research ethics approval to conduct the DAME trial.
Australian and New Zealand Clinical Trial Registry Trial number: ACTRN12611000217909
Further information
The DAME study is being co-ordinated at the Royal Women's Hospital, Mercy Hospital for Women and the Monash Medical Centre by Anita Moorhead.
For more information about the DAME trial, please email Prof Della Forster at d.forster@latrobe.edu.au or Anita Moorhead at a.moorhead@latrobe.edu.au or phone (03) 8345 2932.
