Birth Spacing: Timing Matters In Efforts to Avoid Preterm Births

http://healthnews.uc.edu/news/?/24649/

Publish Date: 06/04/14
Media Contact: Angela Koenig

A new Ohio study demonstrates that women who have shorter birth spacing between the last delivery and their next conception have shorter pregnancy lengths, which puts mother and child at a greater risk for preterm birth.

The study also shows that African-American women have shorter intervals of birth spacing and higher preterm births overall.

The findings were published in 'BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology' on June 4, 2014. The journal is available online at http://www.bjog.org.

"We need to place a particular focus on waiting at least 18 months before becoming pregnant again in order to minimize the potential risk for preterm births for all women,” says study co-author and maternal-fetal medicine specialist Emily DeFranco, DO, an assistant professor in the department of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine.

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