MRC ORACLE Children Study

Welcome to the ORACLE Children Study website

We hope this website provides useful information for parents about the ORACLE Trial and ORACLE Children Study, which were funded by the UK Medical Research Council (MRC).

Every year, about one in eight babies, or 80,000 a year, are born prematurely (before 37 weeks) in the UK. It is the most common cause for babies to die in the first month after birth. Premature babies who survive are more likely to have short-term problems such as breathing and feeding difficulties and infections. They may also have longer-term problems with functioning, behaviour and learning. Whatever happens, having a premature baby is often a traumatic and upsetting experience for women and their families.

Research, like the ORACLE Trial and ORACLE Children Study, to try to find the best ways to treat premature labour and reduce short and long term problems is very important.

The ORACLE Trial ran in 161 hospitals across the world between 1994 and 2000. In the end, 11,050 women took part in the ORACLE trial:  6,241 showed signs of going into labour early and 4,809 had early broken waters. The ORACLE Trial aimed to find out whether it would be helpful for women in either of these situations to have antibiotics, as previous research had suggested mild infection in the membranes surrounding the baby might be involved. It was thought that antibiotics could help by either prolonging the pregnancy or improving the health of the baby, or both. But nobody knew for certain, and nobody knew which antibiotic might be the best. More information and the results can be found below.

The ORACLE Children Study was a follow-up to the ORACLE Trial and followed children in the UK born to mothers who took part in the trial, looking at children's health and how they were doing at school when they were about 7 years old. Parents completed a questionnaire asking about their children’s health and development and, for those living in England, we obtained information on how the children were doing at school by collecting National Standard assessments (KS1). More information and the results can be found below.