Miracle Babies Foundation was proud to once again be a part of the Perinatal Society of Australia and New Zealand's (PSANZ) annual congress.

PSANZ is a multidisciplinary society dedicated to improving the health and long term outcomes for mothers and their babies. PSANZ encompasses and strongly encourages research focused on mothers and babies during pregnancy and at birth as well as the health of the newborn and development after birth.

Every year PSANZ holds an annual congress. The annual congress aims to rotate evenly between Australian States and Territories and New Zealand. The core goals of the Annual Congress are to present new research and discuss information and areas of study aimed at improving perinatal care, and provide a chance for members of the society to broaden their perspectives of perinatology as a whole.

The 2021 PSANZ congress was run as an online-only digital event due to the current climate around the COVID-19 pandemic. The meeting was held in a great virtual conference environment on March 29^th to March 31st, 2021.

Miracle Babies Foundation was honoured to be involved the 2021 virtual three-day congress. It was a whole team effort throughout the foundation, from designing our virtual booth and digital flyers, being online at our virtual booth to answer questions in between the presentations, presenting our own seminar on ‘Parental perspectives on early interventions and directions for future research’, and co-chairing several symposium sessions on ‘Increasing Consumer Engagement for Better Outcomes’ and ‘Interventions to Reduce Inequalities in Perinatal Health’.

Miracle Babies CEO and co-founder, Kylie Pussell said “It’s been such a wonderful virtual experience for us to be part of and thank PSANZ for including Miracle Babies Foundation and for inviting and having so many parents’ voices be part of the conference over the last few days. We know that the lived experience and what parents and families can bring to the table for research is really important.
The longer-term health impacts for our children as they become teenagers and young adults becomes really important for families. We want to know more, we want to be able to educate and support our children as they enter adulthood to make choices for themselves that can also improve their longer term outcomes; to encourage them to share their birth story where it’s applicable and to help them really live longer, happier, healthier lives”.

Everyone at Miracle Babies is looking forward to being part of the next annual congress, PSANZ 2022 'Better Together’, in Adelaide next year.

Photo: Miracle Babies Kylie Pussell and Melinda Cruz, presenting ‘Parental perspectives on early interventions and directions for future research’.