Dr Aridas completed a PhD in perinatal medicine at Monash University, awarded for work on protecting the newborn brain when a baby is deprived of oxygen around the time of birth. The programme examined how brain injury develops in the hours after birth, and tested three protective strategies: cooling, umbilical cord blood cells and melatonin.
The work was pre-clinical, carried out at The Ritchie Centre with neurobiologists, fetal physiologists, obstetricians, neonatologists, neurologists and radiologists, and supported by more than $1 million in funding from the NHMRC, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and philanthropic sources. Its findings have since informed the design of human trials of melatonin for newborn encephalopathy.
Research training changes how a clinician reads evidence. It means being able to look past a headline or a single study, weigh how reliable a finding actually is, and explain plainly what is known, what is uncertain and what that means for one particular pregnancy.
The subject matter is directly relevant to obstetric practice: fetal wellbeing, the timing of birth, and what happens to a baby who has a difficult birth. That background informs decisions about surveillance, timing and escalation, and it supports frank conversations after a birth that did not go as hoped.
Where a PubMed record exists, the citation links to it.
A complete and current list is maintained at ORCID 0000-0002-4000-2110.
Research only helps families if it can be explained clearly. Dr Aridas has spoken about newborn brain injury and pregnancy care on television, radio and in print, and at events for both scientific and general audiences.
Media enquiries can be directed to the practice on the contact page.