Yuan et al. BMC Research Notes 2010, 3:119 http://www.biomedcentral.com/1756-0500/3/119 Open Access SHORT REPORT BioMed Central © 2010 Bernal et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Short Report Analysis of preterm deliveries below 35 weeks' gestation in a tertiary referral hospital in the UK. A case-control survey Wei Yuan 1 , Anne M Duffner 1 , Lina Chen 2 , Linda P Hunt 3 , Susan M Sellers 4 and Andrés López Bernal* 1 Abstract Background: Preterm birth remains a major public health problem and its incidence worldwide is increasing. Epidemiological risk factors have been investigated in the past, but there is a need for a better understanding of the causes of preterm birth in well defined obstetric populations in tertiary referral centres; it is important to repeat surveillance and identify possible changes in clinical and socioeconomic factors associated with preterm delivery. The aim of this study was to identify current risk factors associated with preterm delivery and highlight areas for further research. Findings: We studied women with singleton deliveries at St Michael's Hospital, Bristol during 2002 and 2003. 274 deliveries between 23-35 weeks' gestation (preterm group), were compared to 559 randomly selected control deliveries at term (37-42 weeks) using standard statistical procedures. Both groups were >80% Caucasian. Previous preterm deliveries, high maternal age (> 39 years), socioeconomic problems, smoking during pregnancy, hypertension, psychiatric disorders and uterine abnormalities were significantly associated with preterm deliveries. Both lean and obese mothers were more common in the preterm group. Women with depression/psychiatric disease were significantly more likely to have social problems, to have smoked during pregnancy and to have had previous preterm deliveries; when adjustments for these three factors were made the relationship between psychiatric disease and pregnancy outcome was no longer significant. 53% of preterm deliveries were spontaneous, and were strongly associated with episodes of threatened preterm labour. Medically indicated preterm deliveries were associated with hypertension and fetal growth restriction. Preterm premature rupture of the membranes, vaginal bleeding, anaemia and oligohydramnios were significantly increased in both spontaneous and indicated preterm deliveries compared to term controls. Conclusions: More than 50% of preterm births are potentially preventable, but remain associated with risk factors such as increased uterine contractility, preterm premature rupture of the membranes and uterine bleeding whose aetiology is unknown. Despite remarkable advances in perinatal care, preterm birth continues to cause neonatal deaths and long-term morbidity. Significant breakthroughs in the management of preterm birth are likely to come from research into the mechanisms of human parturition and the pathophysiology of preterm labour using multidisciplinary clinical and laboratory approaches. Background Preterm birth remains a major cause of perinatal mortal- ity and morbidity and efforts to predict and prevent its occurrence are difficult because of our lack of under- standing of the biochemical mechanism of labour and the multiplicity of medical and socioeconomic factors associ- ated with preterm delivery [1]. The incidence of preterm birth (deliveries before 37 weeks' gestation) ranges from 6-8% in Europe, Australia and Canada [2,3], to 9-12% in Asia, Africa and the United States [4,5]. Preterm birth is recognised as a worldwide problem responsible for more than 80% of neonatal deaths and more than 50% of long term morbidity in the surviving infants [6,7]. The inci- * Correspondence: a.lopezbernal@bristol.ac.uk 1 University of Bristol, Department of Clinical Science at South Bristol (Obstetrics and Gynaecology), St Michael's Hospital, Southwell St. Bristol, BS2 8EG. UK Full list of author information is available at the end of the article