For how we live.
A cohort of 102 children born very preterm found epigenetic age acceleration linked to higher cognitive and motor scores at three — even, unexpectedly, in those with severe brain injury.
Among 93,406 children in Japan's national birth cohort, preterm birth was linked to higher odds of thinness at ages 4 to 6 and persistently lower BMI from 3 to 6, with no sign of catch-up.
A nationwide study of 624,713 first births found quadrivalent HPV vaccination before pregnancy associated with modestly lower odds of preterm birth and growth restriction, strongest among women vaccinated youngest.
In 1,448 pregnancies, lower early placental growth factor was linked to more preterm births — yet adding it to a prediction model lifted accuracy only from 0.59 to 0.68.
AIROPLANE enrolled 1,818 newborns at 32 to 35 weeks across 26 Australian hospitals. Starting with 30% oxygen instead of room air left the same share still on respiratory support leaving the delivery room.
Analysing 64.8 million births from 2005 to 2022, researchers found policies such as physician-only requirements and 20-week bans tied to higher odds of preterm birth or low Apgar scores.
A modelling study estimates near-universal kangaroo care would avert 1.6 million disability-adjusted life-years and shield 57,000 households from catastrophic health costs, with most gains among the poorest.
Among 603 RECOVER participants, 118 were classified as likely having Long COVID. The primary analysis found no association with preterm delivery, and one secondary signal that only appeared in a sensitivity analysis.
Whole-genome sequencing of 78 families put the figure at two mutations per year of paternal age. A cohort of 40 million US births found small increases in preterm birth and gestational diabetes.
A Bulletin of the WHO study recorded 168 maternal deaths between October 2023 and June 2024, alongside higher stillbirth, neonatal-death and preterm-birth rates than before the war.
The elevated risk showed up even in babies with no detectable malformation — which is not what the standard recessive-disease explanation predicts.
In 12 clusters, 6% of girls in the intervention group experienced a maternal or perinatal death against 13% in control. The trial was a pilot, and the authors present it as such.
Deaths during combined heat and ozone days in Hong Kong, preterm births projected across Chinese cities to 2100, and a seasonal flip in Japan's ambulance demand from winter to summer.