RECRUITMENT to the ground-breaking Born in Bradford (BiB) health research project is now complete - thanks to the generous support of families in Bradford.

On Christmas Eve the last women will be invited to join the project and the recruitment office will close its doors for the final time after recruiting almost 14,000 local mums.

Born in Bradford director, Professor John Wright, said: “Four years ago we launched Born in Bradford more in hope than expectation and, at the time, we were worried that we would struggle to recruit 1,000 let alone 10,000 families.

“We now have important, priceless information about the health and disease – from birth - of almost 14,000 local families.

“Over the coming years, we will be able to piece together these clues to discover what aspects of daily life and lifestyle choices people make that   might contribute to childhood and adult illness and how we can improve the health of the people of Bradford.

“The study has attracted a huge amount of interest from all over the world, but more importantly from all across the city where support has been overwhelming - we should have called the study Brilliant in Bradford.”

The original target of 10,000 babies was reached in February of this year and the study has been so popular and successful that by Christmas Eve nearly 14,000 mothers and their infants will have been enrolled. This represents around 60% of all women who have had their babies at Bradford Royal Infirmary since recruitment began in March 2007.

Lead research midwife, Dagmar Waiblinger, who ran the recruitment office, said: “It really is the end of an era. I can hardly believe that nearly 14,000 women have volunteered to be part of this important medical research study.

“It has been an amazing journey and a real achievement for the research team who have worked so hard over the last three years.

“We look forward to discovering the results when they start to come in around spring 2011.”

Sameera Ali, a study administrator who has been with Born in Bradford since recruitment began, commented: “It has been wonderful to have been involved for so long, the time has flown and I have loved the job. There has been so much goodwill from the mothers and their partners who have given up their valuable time to provide BiB with a wealth of data.

“We have mums coming back to give blood samples and complete lengthy questionnaires for a second and even third time because they have felt so positive about the Born in Bradford project.

“I have also seen the mums involved in the BiB 1000 study with their babies at six and 12 months and now that I am moving into that work full-time, I will be seeing them at 18, 24 and 36 months. It is great to see their progress and to hear how they are all doing.”

BiB’s main areas of research include looking into what causes diabetes, asthma and eczema, obesity, heart disease, sudden infant death syndrome and the high rate of infant mortality in Bradford.

For more information about these and other studies you can visit our website at www.borninbradford.nhs.uk