COLLECTION OF BIOLOGICAL SAMPLES IN HOSPITALS: from inclusion to delivery

BISC is a large-scale multidisciplinary project, and as such, it wants to cover all related variables, therefore, samples and data are collected through various means such as questionnaires, hospital visits or environmental visits.

During pregnancy, a visit to the hospital is made at 32 weeks of pregnancy, in which biological samples are collected, apart from a neurosonography and an echocardiography to obtain data on the baby. Taking advantage of this visit, in the same consultation, three biological samples are collected: hair sample, blood test and vaginal-rectal smear, thus ending the samples collected during pregnancy in the hospital.

Later at the time of delivery, other samples are collected such as a piece of placenta, newborn cord blood and blood from the mother, where the same puncture of the placement of the peripheral line is used for its extraction, thus avoiding a new puncture, and in the room, a sample of meconium is collected from the baby.

The different samples are managed efficiently in coordination with the person responsible for the hospital’s BiSC biobank, who collects them the same day, and then they are stored in special refrigerators or freezers, depending on the sample, until the moment they will be analyzed.

The text has been written by Estela Rodríguez, a nurse from the BiSC project.