50% of pre-term births due to infections

Staff Reporter
ABOUT 50% of pre-term births occur because of certain infections during pregnancy, whose origins are yet unknown, a gynaecologist has said.
And unfortunately, many pregnant women do not show any classic signs of such infections, like in the case of fever, until they come into labour, after major damage has been done to their babies.
Speaking to Gulf Times about the issue, consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist Dr Austin Ugwumadu, who is visiting Hamad Medical Corporation from St George’s Hospital, London, said pre-term births refer to as babies born before their full-term of 38-42 weeks in their mother’s womb is becoming a big issue globally.
He said that a sub-set of babies born early to mothers with these infections tend to suffer much more than those born to uninfected mothers. “The babies not just tend to suffer in the first few weeks or months after their births, sometimes they have impaired growth, could not go to normal school, they exert low physical performance and could lose employment opportunities later in life,” he stated.
He explained that the infections are very mild sub-clinical infections, which in other words do not make the mother very ill but can make the baby ill while in the womb, adding it could only be detected if certain screening exercise was conducted.
The expert mentioned that though the infections could be managed by a number of strategies, which include giving antibiotics or steriods to mature the babies lungs and managing them expectantly until they get to 32 - 34 weeks, it is uncertain whether the antibiotics are effective, saying they could even be causing more harm than good to the babies.
Dr Ugwumadu cautioned women to desist from common practices such as douching (aggressive cleaning of the private part with certain antiseptics).
Douching kills some protective bacteria and open ways to unfriendly ones, which have been suspected to lead to some of the infections,” he said.
The doctor said the percentage of the morbidity (mental retardation, cerebal palsy, blindness and breathing difficulty) would determine on how early they were born, saying if they were born between 24 – 28 weeks, they are most likely to be significantly affected.
“At this stage, the chances are that 50% of them may not survive and of the other half about 80% will have significant morbidity. If babies are delivered between 28 – 32 weeks, at least 80-90% are likely to survive and of this, significant morbidity will be in the region of about 15 – 20%, they will have milder morbidity, that is, very subtle motor deficits.”