If participating in the BLOOM Premature Child Study (PCS), you and your child will be involved in the study until your baby turns 3.5 years regardless of your child’s age when they joined the study.

Over this period, we will ask you:
To collect samples (stool and urine, breastmilk) at the most 10 times (details in the figure and legend). Sampling is done at home that mostly consists of stool and urine samples (details here).
We will ask you to fill in four questionnaires at your own pace (can be paused and restarted).
Lastly we will welcome you three time at the clinic, a first time for a 15min interview (3 months) and two other times for 30 min clinic visits (1 & 3 years).
While we cannot set a determined time, we estimate that overall your involvement in the study should take less than 10hrs over the whole period of enrolment (inc. on-site visit).

For infants joining at birth – Details about sample collection frequency:
When returning home, we will ask you to collect samples once weekly until your baby reaches 8 weeks.

Details about sample collection
Sample collection is done from the comfort of your home. For sample pick-up, samples will be placed in a provided cooler left at your door. Coolers can be ordered from home by reaching out to our team or our carrier directly (details here). Once ordered, coolers are delivered with sampling materials and instructions at your front door. Cooler delivery and pickup are contactless. The infant’s samples during this period consist of stool and urine collection. Samples collection and “shipping” are thought to take less than 30min. In total, we will ask you at the most 7 sample collection time points within the first 8 weeks of your baby’s age.

For similar questions about the other BLOOM study, please visit their webpage here.