Why WOMBAT is needed
Improving birth outcomes for women, babies and families by finding out which drugs, devices and treatments work best around the time of birth.
Safer Births
Improving maternity care through real-world research that saves more lives.
Most births at term are safe, but preventable harm still occurs. Serious outcomes such as stillbirth, newborn death, brain injury, severe maternal morbidity, postpartum haemorrhage, birth trauma, emergency caesarean birth and admission of newborns to intensive care can have lifelong effects on women, babies and families.
Many everyday decisions in labour and newborn care are based on incomplete evidence. Small differences in how common treatments are used across hospitals may affect outcomes for thousands of women and babies each year.
WOMBAT is being developed to answer these questions more reliably by embedding large, practical randomised comparisons into routine care, with outcomes that matter to women, families, clinicians and health services.