By Amanda Murthy
A Western Australian obstetrics specialist – who has dedicated more than 35 years of his life to saving and improving the lives of women, unborn infants, and families – has been named Senior Australian of the Year for 2020.
Professor John Newnham AM is an eminent leader in the prevention of preterm birth, the leading cause of death and life-long disability in Australia for children up to five years of age.
In 1989, he founded and led the pioneering Raine Study, the world’s first and most enduring pregnancy-focussed lifetime cohort project. The ongoing study follows a cohort of nearly 3000 Western Australians from 18 weeks of pregnancy up to their current age of 30 years.
Prof Newnham spoke to The Record about what the award means to him and how he intended to continue raising awareness on his cause.
“Upon accepting the award from Prime Minister Scott Morrison, I was absolutely amazed. I never thought that anything like that would happen in my life and its’ certainly not been my goal,” Prof Newnham said.
“I am a clinician; I look after pregnant women and unborn babies – my radar screen does not include things like awards, so I definitely felt blessed and was completely overwhelmed.
“When I was a medical student, I became fascinated by life before birth. I thought I had found an undiscovered continent and I have spent the rest of my life exploring it.
Now based in the University of Western Australia, the 30-year-old Raine Study, involves more than 200 scientists, has produced more than 550 original published scientific papers, has attracted more than 24 million dollars in external funding to WA, and is the world’s first cohort involving detailed study during pregnancy.
His inspiration behind the Raine Study came from his days as a medical student, when he decided to challenge the understanding that medicine begins at birth. He thought this cannot be right and that instead events before birth play out in a major way through childhood and adulthood.
“In 1988, when I wrote the grant application for the Raine Study, this concept of the importance of life before birth was a radical idea, that was in no shape or form accepted by most people including my own seniors, and now, it has become mainstream thinking,” Prof Newnham stated.
“When there were challenges around, I put my head down, I worked hard, stayed productive, tried to be kind to as many people as I could, and I believe together with my families support – this has made me the person I am today and I feel extremely blessed.
In 2014, Prof Newnham felt he had enough resources to put together a package for the whole of the WA population, launching an outreach program he named The Western Australian Preterm Birth Prevention Initiative, which involved seven new interventions.
The initiative proved a huge success, lowering preterm birth by eight per cent across the state, and 20 per cent in WA’s King Edward Memorial Hospital. The success soon led in 2018 to a national roll-out named the Australian Preterm Birth Prevention Alliance.
“Australia is now the first nation on earth to have a national program aimed at lowering this major complication of pregnancy and there is no doubt that in the field prevention of preterm birth, we are a world leader.
With all this success and honours in his name, Prof Newnham hopes to use his platform to further educate the public, create awareness, and to ultimately convince government to make preterm birth prevention a national priority.
One of the potential new areas of discovery in this cause is a study being run by the Women and Infants Research Foundation, that investigates whether the presence of bacteria in a woman’s vagina during pregnancy could be a sign to identify and treat those at risk of an early delivery.
When asked about the proudest moment in his career, Prof Newnham stated it was the fact that he was able to be a huge contributor to an entire field of life, which is life before birth, one that is far more important than anybody had realised before.
“Understanding this fact, and being educated about life before birth, gives us an entirely new way of preventing disease throughout our life span, Prof Newnham explained.
“Diseases such as obesity, diabetes, heart disease, human behaviours, and productivity are all influenced by events before human beings are born.
“It gives me enormous peace and happiness to know that the next generation of medical practitioners and researchers have this principle to build on, and I hope that we will continue to lower the risk of preterm birth and other diseases in our state, and country,” he concluded.