Travel story: Maleesa Pathirana

Maleesa Pathirana from the Robinson Research Institute travelled to Hobart to attend the SOMANZ Conference in October to present a poster presentation. 

This is what Maleesa had to say about their experience:

What was a highlight of the travel?

Meeting other obstetric researchers across Australia, and enjoying the food and wine in Hobart!

Please provide details on any researchers or collaborators of significance that you met at the conference and why they are important to your work?

I was able to meet Hannah Christie, a PhD Candidate from the University of Wollongong and discuss her online wellbeing a lifestyle pilot program for postpartum mothers in the first year of life. The program included seminars from different health professionals on sleep, lactation, childhood development and lifestyle after pregnancy. Learning about this project and her PhD work is important to our research as this project was able to utilise different health services and providers which is something we hope to integrate in the COFFEE clinic.

How will the experience support you and your research going forward?

I learnt a lot about how environmental stressors during pregnancy have a significant effect on maternal postpartum health and child wellbeing. This particular session has allowed me to think about all the data we collected on environmental and lifestyle factors that we could investigate their potential effects on postpartum health.

What was the most exciting thing you learned/experienced as part of your travel?

My favourite presentation by far was by Dr Katrina Moss from The University of Queensland who presented on reducing impacts of natural disasters on prenatal stress and mother and child outcomes. Her study showed that not only the exposure but the timing in gestation of when women were exposed to the Queensland Flood of 2011 affected neurodevelopmental outcomes in children. She also explained how we can reduce the impacts of natural disasters on mothers and children which was very enlightening.

What was the most interesting or unexpected moment of your travel?

There was a great recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people’s and Maori people’s health perspectives and a good discussion throughout the conference on how to analyse and interpret indigenous data and how as scientist and clinicians we can work to make their pregnancy a better experience for them.