BY THE time a woman goes into premature labour it is often too late to
stop the contractions, and the baby can be born with dangerously underdeveloped
organs. But researchers in Britain may now have found a way to predict
labour鈥攚eeks before it happens. This would allow for intervention earlier
and ensure a safer delivery.
鈥淲e could nip the whole cascade of events in the bud,鈥� says Nigel Simpson, an
obstetrician and gynaecologist at the University of Leeds. He and his colleague
James Walker found that the electrical signals that stimulate muscle contraction
in the uterus change over the course of pregnancy. As an expectant mother gets
closer to labour, the uterine muscles begin to act in unison, getting ready to
push the baby out. As this happens, the number of random muscle contractions,
which show up as high-frequency peaks in the signal, begin to die down.
鈥淭he uterus doesn鈥檛 wake up one day and say `Oh, I鈥檒l go into labour today,'鈥�
says Simpson. 鈥淚t gradually becomes more susceptible to being activated.鈥� If the
electrical changes observed prove predictable enough, doctors could then
pinpoint the time of birth weeks in advance. 鈥淯p to two weeks is certainly
feasible,鈥� says Walker.
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To detect the signals, hospital staff place a few sticky-pad
electrodes鈥攍ike the ones used by an ECG to monitor the heart鈥� on the
mother鈥檚 stomach. If the system proves reliable, Simpson and Walker hope that
women could use personal labour-detection devices at home.
They suspect, however, that this monitoring system might prove most valuable
for showing when a mother is not going into labour, rather than when she is.
This would be especially useful for first-time mothers who suspect they鈥檙e
having early contractions. Being able to detect false alarms at home would
prevent a wasted trip to the hospital.
鈥淎nything that would aid us with an estimation on the time of labour would be
nothing but a good thing,鈥� says Alan Cameron, a specialist in fetal medicine at
the Queen Mother鈥檚 Maternity Hospital in Glasgow. Between 6 and 7 per cent of
women go into premature labour, he says, which can lead to babies being born
with dangerously underdeveloped lungs and other organs. And some premature
births signal other problems, like infections in the mother or child鈥攕o an
early warning could help diagnose these problems.
However, not everyone approves. Mary Newburn, head of policy research at the
London-based National Childbirth Trust, a charity that supports parents and
parents-to-be, says wrong results from such a system could turn happy
pregnancies into stressful ones. 鈥淭his is another example of the creeping tide
of technology,鈥� she says. 鈥淐an women not be trusted to listen to their own
bodies, as they always have done?鈥�