Transactions from the Annual Meeting of the American Gynecological and Obstetrical SocietyThe epidemiology of threatened preterm labor: A prospective cohort study
Section snippets
Material and methods
The Pregnancy, Infection, and Nutrition (PIN) study was a prospective cohort study that was designed to identify determinants of preterm birth. The cohort included pregnant women who sought care from prenatal clinics at the Wake County Human Services Department, Wake Medical Center/Wake Area Health Education Center, and the University of North Carolina (UNC) Healthcare System.5 The study included singleton pregnancies in women who speak English, who were >16 years of age at enrollment, who had
Results
The group was balanced between white (57%) and black women (43%) who were between the ages 16 and 45 years (mean, 26 years). Eighty-one percent of the study subjects had completed at least high school (Table I); 1355 patients (53.5%) were parous, and 13.4% of the total population had a previous preterm birth. Almost 10% of the women reported a sexually transmitted infection (eg, herpes, Chlamydia, gonorrhea, or syphilis) in the current pregnancy, and almost 12% of them reported bacterial
Comment
Our data demonstrate an overall prevalence of first-time hospital admission for threatened premature labor of 9%, which is comparable to that observed by others.8, 9 Just over one half of our cohort was first diagnosed between 24 and 32 weeks of gestation, and earlier first-time admissions were less likely to culminate in preterm birth. Previous preterm birth was a predictor of admission for threatened premature labor for first admissions at both 24 to 32 weeks of gestation and 33 to 37 weeks
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Cited by (0)
Supported by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, grant Nos. PIN 1-HD28684, PIN 2-HD28684A, PIN 3-HD37584, and PIN 3/plus/-HD39373.
Presented at the 23rd Annual Meeting of the American Gynecological and Obstetrical Society, September 9-11, 2004, Bolton Landing, NY.