Patients and public help create multilingual resources for expectant parents

4 Jun 2025, 3:21 p.m.

A picture of the opening sequence from the animation that says 'A Prenatal sequencing test' on a blue stripe over red and pale orange splashes

A group of clinicians and researchers at GOSH have developed information about a test offered in pregnancy called prenatal sequencing in the UK’s 12 most common languages.

Through working with families who were offered this test in pregnancy, the research team at GOSH learned that families need more accessible information about prenatal sequencing. To meet this need, they worked with experts and parents with lived experience of prenatal testing to develop an animation that explains what to expect if you are offered this test. The animation was subtitled but was only available in English.

Improving access

The same cartoon image shown six times with different language subtitles underneath.

Through funding from the NIHR GOSH Biomedical Research Centre, the animation has now been translated into the UK’s 11 most spoken languages after English: Bengali, Urdu, Romanian, Polish, Arabic, Greek, Mandarin, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, and French.

This suite of resources is aimed at parents undergoing prenatal sequencing in the current NHS service. Offering the animation in multiple languages contributes to health equity, ensuring that more parents are able to access information about prenatal sequencing in a format that best suits their needs and in their first language.  You can find all the videos on an introduction to prenatal testing for families.

What do bush babies, tamarin monkeys, and mouse lemurs have that humans don’t?

GOSH imaging researchers have worked with teams in Harvard in the USA to work out how and when our pelvises developed to be different from other animals.

Nanodiamonds and hormones used in rare condition to promote lung growth

An international research team led by GOSH, UCL and KU Leuven in Belgium, is using 3D-printing and nanodiamonds, to design treatments that could help babies repair their damaged lungs in the womb.

90s time capsule sealed by Diana, Princess of Wales, revealed

A time capsule, laid by Diana, Princess of Wales, at Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) 34 years ago has been opened to enable construction of the hospital’s new Children’s Cancer Centre

New national registry for inherited hearing loss

A new national registry is helping researchers understand more about inherited hearing loss – and could help bring about new treatments.