Premature birth is the largest contributor to deaths of children under five-years-old worldwide, according to Science Daily, making the need for a test to predict if a child will be delivered preterm imperative.
For mums in low-resource areas, knowing that they may give birth before their due date can help them prepare for their little one's early arrival.
Preterm birth (when babies arrive three weeks early or more) still remains a mystery in many ways. However, a new study suggests that a simple blood test could predict if a child will be born prematurely with 75 to 80 percent accuracy.
This test is less expensive than ultrasound, and can also determine the foetus' gestational age and prematurity risk. As well, ultrasound can prove tricky because the information it provides can be more unreliable further into pregnancy.
The researchers have noted that they need to validate the blood test with a larger sample of women, but these preliminary results are intriguing, to say the least.
Stanford University scientists studied a group of 31 pregnant Danish women. The mums-to-be gave blood weekly during their pregnancies, and samples from 21 of the women were used to create a statistical model.
Their model identified nine cell-free RNAs that can predict the foetus' gestational age. The team then used samples from the other 10 women to validate their model. All women in the Dutch cohort had full-term pregnancies.
The model was accurate at estimating gestational age about 45 percent of the time, compared to 48 percent accuracy for the estimates determined during first-trimester ultrasounds.
The study, published in the journal Science, then looked at blood samples from a group of 38 American women who were at risk of premature birth in order to determine how to predict pregnancies ending early.
These expectant mothers were all at risk because they had given birth to a preterm baby previously or experienced early contractions. They gave one blood sample during their second or third trimester.
13 of the mums ended up giving birth prematurely, while the other 25 delivered at term. The researchers discovered that levels of cell-free RNA from seven genes from the mum and placenta could predict which babies would be preterm.
Stanford graduate student Mira Moufarrej noted that it is 'mostly maternal genes' that predict prematurity.
"We think it's mom sending a signal that she's ready to pull the ripcord," she told Science Daily.
The scientists hope to validate the blood test with more women before it is expanded for widespread use.
