Willow, age 3, takes part in Medical Research

Willow, age 3, takes part in Medical Research

At only three years of age Willow Davison has recently participated in her first Medical/developmental research into Preemie Development, through the University of Ulster. Way to go Willow 💪💜😇

Her lovely Mum, Dominique, received a notification via Portsmouth NICU (where Willow was born) asking for participants in online research. The research was conducted through the Ulster University in Northern Ireland (which often teams with Portsmouth university hospital) looking into development of premature babies born before 34 weeks. They specifically wanted children aged 3-4 as these children have gone through two ‘lock downs’ during a key window of child development.

The researcher engaged with them both via Zoom. Willow was asked to complete 3 timed activities. The timed activities Willow was asked to do were:-

– Build blocks that looked like the pictures provided;

– Play a dice game with counters; and

– Play shops where Dominique had to buy items from Willow – Willow had to give her the correct food items.

As an extra activity:-

 – She was then shown numbers on the screen and was asked to say aloud which numbers they were.

No feedback was given, other than stating that Willow was such a happy little girl and it was lovely to engage with her. Dominique is hoping to get access to the final research piece when all of the research has been conducted.

Commenting on why they took part in the research, Dominique says; “l often see (via Bliss) that certain universities conduct frequent studies on premature babies, that usually look at development in later years, or the impact prematurity had on key skills, either throughout their NICU stay or shortly after. This was Willow’s first time engaging for research and we’d be happy to do it again. I’m aware a lot of our close friends through PPBF have stated they have been asked to engage with research, via the hospitals their littles ones were born in. I hope that our engagement helps guide research for future premature babies.

Willow was very proud and very excited to be given her certificate and stickers as a reward. The stickers are now all around the lounge including all up my windows!”

Well done Willow.

If you’d like to read about Willow’s neonatal journey, please click the button below:-