MEDIA RELEASE Monday May 20, 2007
Australia’s rates of pre-term birth on the rise
In this month’s issue of the BJOG, an international Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Associate Professor Sally Tracy and colleagues from the National Perinatal Statistics Unit report a marked increase in the incidence of preterm birth in low-risk women in Australia.
More than 2 million pregnancies were studied and the results showed an almost 20% increase in the proportion of women having a preterm birth with a spontaneous onset over 10 years from 1994.
This means that in 2004, 46 babies born spontaneously were preterm each day in Australia, up from 39 in 1994.
The study found that first time mothers having a single baby and who were considered to be at low-risk of preterm birth had an increase of 10.7% in spontaneous preterm rates over the ten years. For women having a second or subsequent single baby the percentage increase was 19.2%.
After the publication of similar findings from Denmark in 2006, two leading obstetricians in the UK wrote in the British Medical Journal, “Untangling the underlying causative factors may be difficult, but general public health measures to do with smoking, teenage and middle age pregnancy, prevention of sexually transmitted diseases, obesity, and social inequities are a good start.”
Preterm birth is a complex and unresolved public health problem. It is associated with perinatal mortality contributing to more than two-thirds of all perinatal deaths. It has a life time impact on families, health care services, and education systems.
The reasons for preterm birth are not clear. Social disadvantage is associated with an increased risk. This may be related to worse nutritional status, increased cigarette smoking, greater use of recreational drugs such as cocaine, poorer access to antenatal care and frequent genital tract infections. Exposure to racism and discrimination are also considered to be strongly associated with the rates of preterm birth.
“Preterm birth places a huge burden on society. With all the spending in obstetrics over the past decade we are no closer to preventing preterm birth” said Associate professor Sally Tracy, the lead author of the study.
“If we could identify the causes of preterm birth we might be able to adjust some of the spending that is currently directed to over servicing in obstetrics at the time of birth, and redirect it antenatally towards preventing preterm birth.”
“Perhaps a good start could be to make midwives more visible in the community and position them to work more closely with young mothers during pregnancy to provide high quality and accessible antenatal care encourage participation in stop smoking programs where appropriate” Associate Professor Tracy said.
For media enquiries contact:
Dr Barbara Vernon
Executive Officer
Australian College of Midwives
1/97 Northbourne Ave, Turner ACT 2602
Tel: 02 6230 7333
Mob: 0438 855 529
E-mail: executiveofficer@midwives.org.au
Website: www.midwives.org.au