Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School and NFANT Labs Partner to Help Infants with Neonatal Brain Injury

ATLANTA, GA--(Marketwired - Feb 7, 2017) - NFANT Labs announced today a clinical partnership with researchers at Harvard Medical School and Boston Children's Hospital to investigate neonatal sucking patterns as an indicator of neurodevelopment. A white paper detailing the research collaboration is published in the Winter 2017 issue of Neonatal Intensive Care. This research program will seek to provide clear evidence of the association between early abnormalities in feeding performance and underlying brain injury.

Early detection of neonatal brain injury (NBI) in newborn infants is a major challenge; current technologies used to detect NBI are either not sensitive enough at this early age or are too expensive to be of practical use. Christos Papadelis, PhD, lead investigator of the Children's Brain Dynamics research group, and postdoctoral research fellow Eleonora Tamilia, PhD, plan to use the cutting-edge technology of magnetoencephalography (MEG) to correlate brain abnormalities with early feeding patterns as measured by nfant Feeding Solution.

Previous research has demonstrated a link between early sucking performance and later neurodevelopmental outcomes and further understanding this link will make it possible to detect brain abnormalities and neural deficits significantly earlier than the current standard of care. Neonatal feeding screening presents an opportunity to identify patients at risk so they can take advantage of the benefits of early interventions. Dr. Papadelis' group is uniquely equipped with a MEG system tailored specifically for children from birth to three years of age and will be able to employ pioneering neuroimaging methods integrating anatomical and functional neuroimaging findings to feeding patterns.

"NFANT Lab's data-driven cloud solutions are shifting the standard of care in the NICU for infant feeding screening and intervention," said Dr. Tommy Cunningham, COO and co-founder of NFANT Labs. "This partnership with leaders in the scientific community will further demonstrate the value of nfant Feeding Solution beyond just feeding disorders and help patients with underlying neurodevelopmental issues typically not detected until early childhood."

Currently there are only five MEG systems available worldwide for use with children, significantly limiting access to screening and diagnostic options. However, nfant Feeding Solutions is in use in hospitals and academic institutions across the country, so the findings from this study and its clinical application can immediately translate to cribside care.

About NFANT Labs LLC:
NFANT Labs is an emerging digital health and medical device company based in Atlanta, GA dedicated to infant feeding. Its first product, nfant Feeding Solution, is the first FDA-cleared "Internet of Things" (IoT) medical device for the NICU. Improving the standard of feeding care by collecting objective data and tracking feeding progression has the potential to shorten NICU stays, reduce readmissions and deliver substantial savings. For more information about NFANT Labs, all of its products, and disclaimers about this release, please visit www.nfant.com.