A British study published in the British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology reveals that a simple saliva test could help identify whether mothers are more likely to experience a premature birth.
Researchers at University College London and King’s College London discovered that women who go into premature labour have low levels of progesterone (pregnancy hormone) in their saliva.
The research team took saliva samples from 92 pregnant women every week between their 24 and 34th weeks of pregnancy. The women who were recruited all had an increased risk of going into premature labour.
Lead author Professor Lucilla Poston, from the Maternal and Fetal Research Unit at King’s College London, said, "We are now planning a much larger study to validate these preliminary findings. Saliva is easy to collect, there is no need for a needle or a blood sample and it would be wonderful if in the future we only had to ask a pregnant woman to produce a small sample of saliva to know whether or not she was at risk of very early premature birth."