Ultrasounds could predict premature births: UI, UIC study

CHICAGO, Ill. (WCIA) — Nursing and engineering researchers at the University of Illinois and the University of Illinois Chicago have discovered how to use ultrasounds to predict premature births in pregnant women.

The Centers for Disease Control says more than 10% of pregnancies in the U.S. resulted in premature births in 2022. Currently, there is no way of knowing whether a woman who is pregnant for the first time is at risk of having a premature delivery. This is because the only way to know if a woman is at risk, is if she has previously had a preterm birth.

Now, researchers at the University of Illinois and the University of Illinois Chicago have discovered a new risk assessment method to help pregnant mothers and their doctors prepare for a potentially early delivery.

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The new method uses quantitative ultrasound to measure changes in the microscopic structure of a woman’s cervix. Quantitative ultrasound is different from the traditional ultrasound you might think of, where data helps produce a picture of a baby in the womb. Quantitative ultrasound data is not used for in-utero baby photos, but for measuring tissue characteristics as determined by ultrasonic waves.

This data can predict premature birth risks as early as 23 weeks into a pregnancy. Researchers said this approach allowed them to accurately predict preterm births after a study was done on 429 women who gave birth without induction at Chicago’s UI Health hospital.

The research on this new approach began in 2001 when UIC nursing PhD student Barbara McFarlin reached out to Bill O’Brien, Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering. McFarlin had previous experience as a midwife and sonographer, where she noticed that the cervix in women with premature births looked different than the cervix in women with timely births. At the time, O’Brien was studying quantitative ultrasound data and how it could be used in health research.

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22 years later, the duo and a team of coauthors — including UIC nursing PhD student Michelle Villegas-Downs, U of I statistics PhD student Mehrdad Mohammadi, statistics professor Douglas Simpson, and engineering professor Aiguo Han at Virginia Tech — have established that preterm deliveries can be predicted through quantitative ultrasound and its detection of changes in the cervix.

Now, the question is how to prevent premature births. This is the first time that medical professionals will be able to assess risk so early, so proactive interventions have yet to be studied. Researchers said they hope studies will begin soon on how to best delay or avoid preterm deliveries, but for now, they believe their findings will help to better prepare expecting mothers.

The research on this new method is published in the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology Maternal Fetal Medicine.

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