The SHAPES research team at Newcastle University and Newcastle NHS Hospital Trust would like to provide an update for all participants for taking part in the study.

What did we achieve during the study?

• Between April 2022- April 2024, we successfully included 1450 pregnant participants in the study. All Shapes babies were born by November 2024.
  
  
• During each research visit at the 12-week scan appointment, we took 6 ultrasound measurements and 22 body shape measurements. This means we took  40600 measurements during this stage of the study.
  
  This is an amazing achievement and it couldn't have been done without the support of all of you.

Prize Draw: 40 x £100 gift voucher prizes

Everyone taking part in the SHAPES study was given an option to enter into a prize draw, with a chance to win a £100 gift voucher. The gift vouchers were sent out to the 40 lucky participants.

What’s next for the SHAPES study?

All the SHAPES babies were born by November 2024, which meant we could begin to review the routine maternity notes to gather information about each participant's pregnancy and how their baby was born. This information will give us a better understanding of which women and babies will benefit the most from extra care during pregnancy.

The results from SHAPES will be used to see how well body shape measurements relate to health during pregnancy.

Follow-up study

We wanted to know more about the experience of having the extra body shape measurements taken as part of the 12-week scan appointment.

Susan Lennie, a researcher at Newcastle University, spoke to 14 women to understand the different perspectives and experiences of having the extra measurements taken. 

SHAPES-Bio study using routine blood samples

In the previous update we mentioned the extra SHAPES study, which involves using routine blood samples taken in pregnancy to see if we can identify which pregnant women would benefit most from extra care in the future.

The funding application for Shapes-Bio has now been submitted and we will find out later this year if we are successful. 

A big thank you!

Thanks again to everyone who has taken part in SHAPES, we really appreciate everyone's involvement and the potential for this study to benefit pregnant women and babies in the future. We look forward to sharing the SHAPES findings with you, as well as updates about the SHAPES-Bio study.

1. SHAPES Cohort Study

• Ethics Approvals For Research
• Cohort Study Summary
• Research Documents
• Update For Participants
• Contact Details

2. SHAPES Individual Participant Data Study

3. Cost Effectiveness Study

 4. Qualitative Study 

5. Shapes Bio Study