This May we finish the 18-month follow-up!

From the BiSC project team, we announce that the 18-month follow-up ends this May! This means that all BiSC boys and girls have already completed their first year and a half of life, after more than 2 and a half years since the first visit at that age.

The “star” test of this visit was the Bayley scale, which the BiSC families did with our psychologist, Muriel. In this test we were able to evaluate the cognitive and motor development, as well as the language development (receptive and expressive) of BiSC children. We know that the visit with Muriel was very enjoyable and that the families left very happy. In total we were able to visit 758 participants out of the 1029 boys and girls participating in the cohort. But aside from the Bayley scale, we have also carried out questionnaires that will help us evaluate behavior and the possible presence of autism risk. In addition, a subgroup of around 100 participants also took the eye-tracking test with Jessica (see news), which allows the children’s attention to be objectively evaluated. Finally, thanks to your dedication, we have been able to measure your children’s exposure to NO2, a pollutant that mostly comes from motorized vehicles, and collect urine and stool samples, which will be used to measure exposure to pollutants (urine) and the composition and activity of the intestinal microbiota (faeces – see news).

Now that we have all the information, we will start analyzing the data to be able to publish the results as soon as possible, and thus contribute to generating scientific evidence! In the meantime, we will continue with the 28-month follow-up and the 4-year visit (see news). As always, many thanks to all the BiSC families for your solidarity and commitment to the project! We will keep you informed of the results as they come out!