Blood tests are conducted on the neonatal wards at Skåne University hospital (SUS, in Lund), Drottning Silvias barn- och ungdomssjukhus  (part of Sahlgrenska University Hospital), Karolinska University Hospital at both the Huddinge and Solna sites using a reduced quantity of blood when testing infants born extremely premature. These babies are born before week 27.

The purpose of sampling with a reduced quantity of blood is to preserve factors in the blood that are necessary for the normal development of a child.

Firstly, reducing  the amount of blood currently required for different tests is to examine whether reduced blood sampling and thus reduced loss of blood volume in extremely premature infants, leads to a lower occurrence of chronic lung disease or bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD).

Secondly is to examine whether reduced blood sampling and thus reduced loss of blood volume results in increased levels of circulating growth factors, stem cells and foetal/adult haemoglobin levels. And if the effects demonstrated may lead to to fewer blood transfusions and smaller volumes of blood from adult donors. This is in addition to a possible reduced incidence  of neonatal diseases  such as cerebral intraventricular haemorrhage (IVH), necrotising enterocolitis (NEC) and infant retinopathy of prematurity (ROP).