Progesterone May Help Prevent Premature Births

I often thought that it was common knowledge that premature babies could potentially suffer severe repercussions due to their early births- including brain damage and cerebral palsy. Apparently I was wrong in this assumption. I just read a report on a study dealing with the effects of preterm delivery, why they seem to be increasing and what can be done to stop them. According to the article, babies that resulted from ART (assisted reproductive technology) have a higher risk of preterm birth, including singletons (normal fertility would raise the risk with multiples only, I’m assuming). A mother who’s experienced a prior pre-term birth will also be more likely to have a subsequent pre-term baby.

The study by the New England Journal of Medicine showed that women who were given progesterone during their pregnancies were less likely to have a preterm baby.

Who’s having premature babies?
Your highest risk group is women who have had a prior preterm birth. Those are the women we’ve targeted for intervention. We have shown that if you give them progesterone, starting at about 16 weeks, you’ll reduce their rate of having a subsequent preterm birth by about a third.

But progesterone isn’t a cure-all. Last year a study in The New England Journal of Medicine showed that it did not prevent preterm birth in twin pregnancies, right?
Exactly. It’s not beneficial for women with multiples. We are currently studying women with a short cervix [another risk factor for premature birth], randomized to progesterone or no progesterone.

My mother couldn’t carry a child to term after she had my first sister (there were three after her). I was the last full term child she had. She may have been able to carry more children to term if she’d been given progesterone. My own daughter went into pre-term labor at 26 weeks, but she wasn’t given progesterone at that time. She was taking Procardia (a hear medication), which stopped her contractions until exactly one week after she finished taking them (my grandson was born at 37 weeks gestation, thankfully). So would my daughter be a candidate for this kind of treatment with her next pregnancy? Or will they save it for women who have actually given birth to preemies?

Premature babies face a ton of obstacles in their short lives and, sadly, millions of them have lost their struggle to live. I’m ecstatic that medicine is finally finding ways to prevent these kinds of tragedies and can’t wait until mothers don’t have to say good-bye to their little ones just because their angels came too soon.

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