Recent studies indicate that some adult diseases, such as hypertension, coronary heart disease, obstructive lung disease, stroke, and diabetes, among others, originate in impaired fetal development and growth. A poor nutrition in early life can have permanent consequences on metabolism, structure, and physiology. Besides, intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR) and macrosomia increase the risk of perinatal mortality and morbidity. Yet little is known about how to characterize intrauterine organ fetal growth and its link to postnatal morbidity, body composition, and neurological development. 

2D ultrasound biometrics have been extensively used to predict the gestational age of the fetus, estimate its weight, and identify growth patterns and abnormalities. Typically, fetal size is estimated by using 2D ultrasound measurements of head, abdomen, and femur, at around 20 weeks gestational age. Fetal growth is then assessed from these measurements by using population-based growth charts. However, these measurements are purely based on size and no indicators of function and nutrition can be accurately established from these charts, since a fetus can be small but healthily growing.

Recent advances in 2D and 3D imaging offer the possibility to look at this from a new perspective, and progress is being made for instance in some areas such as to understand the neurological development of the brain in early life from MR imaging. This new multi-modality imaging project is concerned with identifying new functional and nutritional indicators of growth using ultrasound and MR imaging. The goal is to investigate how 2D/3D ultrasound and magnetic resonance (MR) imaging can assist neonatal functional characterization of IUGRand preterm deliveries by longitudinal 2D/3D fetal imaging measurements. Challenges include finding new functional and nutritional indicators of growth; relating fetal growth with neonatal body composition; and developing tools for personalised perinatal monitoring based on these measurements with the goal of giving neonates a better start in life.