How would you react if you come to know that every year more than one billion babies are born prematurely making up 10% of all births? Shocked right!!

These days, many babies are born prematurely. The early birth of a baby before the actual 37 weeks of pregnancy is termed as premature birth. The bitter truth is that premature birth could lead to many health complications.

Reasons for premature birth:

It is noteworthy that premature birth can be due to many reasons like medical conditions, lifestyle choices, environmental influences etc.

Various medical conditions responsible are:

Chronic health issues:

Various chronic health problems like diabetes, high BP, hormonal disorders etc would contribute to premature birth of a newborn.

Multiple pregnancies:

Pregnant mothers expecting twins, triplets etc face more risk of premature labour. The reason for this is the body of the woman is subjected to more strain.

Cervical insufficiency:

Point is that cervical insufficiency would also lead to premature birth of babies as they would make the cervix dilate and cause labour when it is not supposed to take place.

Various lifestyle factors responsible are:

Smoking/substance use:

Use of tobacco, alcohol, drugs etc during pregnancy would lead to premature birth of a baby.

Poor nutrition:

Foetal growth restriction would occur in the pregnant mothers due to poor nutrition and this would increase the chances of premature birth.

Excess stress:

Hormonal balances and immune responses would get affected by chronic stress. This could lead to premature birth.

Various risk factors associated with premature birth:

– If a pregnant mother gives birth to a premature baby earlier, then there are more chances for her to give birth to another premature baby.

– There are more possibilities of premature birth of a baby if the mother gives birth before the age of 18 or after 35 years of age.

– Reproductive technology like IVF etc would lead to multiple pregnancies and this could result in premature babies.

– Short inter-pregnancy interval or gap (that is less than 6 months) can also lead to premature babies. This could be due to the fact that the mother would not have recovered fully.