Big Lottery Funding

Around 50,000 babies are born prematurely in the UK each year. Preterm birth is defined as delivery of the baby before 37 completed weeks of pregnancy. It is the leading cause of death and disabilities in newborn babies. Improvements in neonatal care have led to higher rates of survival among very premature babies. However, the babies that do survive are at high risk of developing severe disabilities, both mental and physical.  The treatment of babies born early in neonatal intensive care units for the lengthy periods that are frequently required is usually very traumatic for the families involved and is also very expensive. Identifying women at high risk for preterm delivery and developing effective treatments to prevent preterm birth is thus a high priority.
 
Preterm labour is difficult to predict and treatment is often given too late and is therefore ineffective.  Our research project will help prevent women giving birth too soon by enabling doctors to identify the signs of labour.  Andres Lopez Bernal, Professor of Human Reproductive Biology, and his team at the University of Bristol will partner Wellbeing of Women in this project to discover whether low abundance proteins can help predict pre-term labour.  
 
Several proteins have already been identified that increase when labour begins. This research will assess whether these proteins can be used to predict preterm labour.
Professor Bernal and his research team will try to find more of these proteins and use them to predict which women are at risk of going into labour before their due date. These proteins may also be useful in helping us to predict which women will go into labour naturally, without the need for induction. At the end of the project up to six proteins will have been selected which could be used in a new diagnostic test for preterm labour. Obstetricians may then have advanced warning of preterm labour and may be able to treat women more effectively.
 
Through this research funded by the Big Lottery we will gain a greater understanding of the mechanisms of birth, and we can begin to develop much-needed new approaches to stop so many babies being born prematurely. 

 2009 Research Grants

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