Phone May Cut Risk of Premature Births
Women at high risk of giving birth prematurely may be more likely to carry their babies to term if they are in frequent phone contact with a nurse.
High-risk women who received two to four phone calls a week from a nurse during later pregnancy had a 9.5% rate of low-birthweight babies, compared with a 15% rate for other women, a preliminary study found.
The phone calls probably helped by providing education and social support, said study principal investigator Mary Lou Moore, a research assistant professor in obstetrics and gynecology at Wake Forest University’s Bowman Gray School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, N.C.
“For some of these women, this may be the most supportive relationship they’ve ever had,” Moore said. That could make a difference because women under intense stress who have nobody to talk to can be at greater risk for premature birth, she said.
Researchers used low birthweight as an indicator of prematurity, Moore said. About 70% of low-birthweight babies are premature, she said.
Low-birthweight premature babies--born before 37 weeks of pregnancy and weighing less than 5.5 pounds--run a heightened risk of such problems as cerebral palsy, chronic lung conditions, blindness, deafness and mental retardation.
Moore spoke in a telephone interview before presenting the federally funded work Friday in Las Vegas at the annual meeting of the Society of Perinatal Obstetricians.
“This is a promising study” that follows similar indications from other research, said Dr. Robert Goldenberg of the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
He noted that the study has not shown a significant reduction in babies of very low birthweight, who run the highest risk of death and serious medical problems. Reducing those two outcomes is the ultimate test of such a program, he said.
Moore said too few births with very low weight have occurred to assess the program’s effect on them, and the study is continuing with additional women to overcome that problem. The planned total is 1,500 women, she said.
The preliminary results focus on 634 women considered most at risk, such as blacks and teen-agers. The women received public assistance and got prenatal care from a medical school clinic.
They were randomly assigned to get either an instructional booklet about premature labor or the booklet plus phone calls from a nurse between the 24th and 37th weeks of pregnancy.
In the phone calls, nurses asked a standard list of questions about whether the women were experiencing warning signals of premature labor. Moore said that probably helped the women learn about signals that they should get to a hospital to prevent premature birth.
Nurses also encouraged the women to decrease smoking and use of alcohol and illicit drugs. They assessed the women’s nutrition, advised them on eating properly and monitored their use of medications. Women reporting premature contractions were advised about steps to take at home.
Each woman was encouraged to call her nurse any time. Some calls by the women dealt with things like breaking up with a boyfriend or a need for drug treatment.
