29 September 2025
HUM-TE Trial
Miracle Babies Foundation are always proud to share our parent voice and family experiences to support our purpose to improve, support and enhance all lives impacted by a premature or sick birth. One way we do this is participating in research projects that improve care and outcomes for premature and sick babies and their families. We have a growing number of passionate parents all with a lived neonatal experience who fill the role of a consumer representative working with researchers and health care professionals.
The HUM-TE trial is one of these important projects. Miracle Babies Foundation is at the forefront of an effort to improve outcomes for our tiniest babies born before 27 weeks of gestation - through a world-first clinical trial exploring optimal incubator humidity levels. The HUM-TE trial is enrolling more than 300 babies from 12 neonatal units across Australia right now and looking for an answer to the best starting incubator humidity for babies born under 27 weeks gestation in the first 3 days of life.
One in four Australian babies born earlier than 27 weeks gestation do not survive. This is scary and heartbreaking for many families. To be able to share our parent voice with researchers to help find answers to these important questions and improve survival and quality of life for our vulnerable babies and families is so important to us at Miracle Babies. Three quarters of these babies born before 27 weeks who do survive have serious problems with their development.
The fragile skin of these tiniest babies means they lose water rapidly through their skin if humidity isn’t carefully controlled. Dehydration and electrolyte imbalances like hypernatraemia are linked to serious complications, including brain bleeds and even death. Dehydration can be prevented by increasing the humidity in the incubator. But no one knows the best level of humidity to use!
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This project aims to answer that question and is supported by the Medical Research Future Fund of Australia.
“My son was born at 25 weeks gestation and lived for 2 days. The lifetime of grief and heartbreak our family faces every day is very real. In supporting research, we can save more lives and improve outcomes for our miracle babies. Being able to represent families and be part of designing the HUM-TE trial is a real honour to my son’s legacy and to help other families.” Kylie Pussell, CEO said.
"Every baby deserves the best possible start to life, especially those born too soon. We are hopeful this research will provide a simple yet powerful intervention to improve outcomes for the tiniest and most vulnerable patients,” explained Dr Pranav Jani, Senior Staff Specialist in Neonatology at Westmead Hospital and lead investigator of the HUM-TE trial.
" We are deeply grateful to the parents at Miracle Babies Foundation for their valuable contributions to this project, starting from the development of the research question. Their involvement as consumers has greatly enhanced the quality, relevance and impact of the research, ensuring it remains focused on the needs of those it is ultimately designed to benefit," said Dr Jani.
Research for many families can be confronting and overwhelming. By having parents part of the research team and helping to reduce the fear for parents is something that only lived experience can bring to research. Our consumer representatives are passionate about positive change and improving the lives of miracle babies not born yet and the neonatal parenting journey. Read more about our consumer representatives and how they are giving back to change lives.
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