Test developed in Alberta could help prevent premature births
Posted Jul 21, 2016 1:25 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
A premature birth can be one of the most frightening experiences for parents, but a new test developed in Alberta could help prevent them.
A team of researchers have created a blood test for mothers, which can detect their risk of a premature birth.
Suzanne Tough, an Alberta Innovates health scholar said this treatment is exciting.
“Women don’t have to have any symptoms of pre-term birth. So it’s one thing to help a woman once she goes in to pre-term labour but the real opportunity is to identify which women might need more care early on or might need additional care or additional treatments,” Tough said.
However, Donna Slater, an assistant professor with the Alberta Children’s Hospital Research Institute said that it isn’t perfect yet.
“This is still very early days,” she explained. ” We don’t have a nice little kit that we can use in the doctor’s office, right at this moment. But the opportunity with this information to develop really good strong predictive kits is very strong.”
By identifying risk of premature deliveries, researchers hope doctors can give specialized treatments to mothers.
