The University of the Free State’s Faculty of Health Sciences has launched a new Research Room aimed at improving maternal and child health outcomes.

The facility, developed in partnership with Universitas Academic Hospital in Bloemfontein, includes the use of the PEA POD and DXA machine to assess body composition in infants.

The university says the proximity of the equipment to the hospital’s maternity and neonatal units will allow for quick assessments and support the creation of a comprehensive infant body composition database.

Professor Corinna Walsh from the Department of Nutrition and Dietetics says the PEA POD uses air displacement plethysmography to measure key health indicators in newborns.

“We use the volume of the baby. It uses air displacement plethysmography — that’s the method — and then we can assess, using volume and weight, their fat mass, their fat-free mass, muscle mass, and those are very important variables for assessing the health of the infant, much more than just having weight or height measurement which is what we usually have for newborn babies,” says Walsh.

Doctors at Universitas Academic Hospital are expected to use the equipment to detect abnormalities early and intervene where necessary.

The university says this will also enhance academic research and strengthen service delivery to vulnerable infants.

PEA POD helps to detect abnormalities in newborn babies: