Much of the existing research on babies who are born preterm, or before 37 weeks of pregnancy, has focused on their mothers, investigating what causes some women to deliver early.
But that conversation could soon begin to shift, based on a preliminary new piece of research suggesting that a fetus’ DNA — not a mother’s — may contribute to at least some premature births.
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Yet Biggio himself was careful to emphasize that his team’s findings are preliminary, estimating that it may be at least 10 years before they have any real-world applicability. It is not yet known what these particular duplications or deletions do to the function of a baby’s genes, he said, or how this might contribute to the problem of preterm birth. Nor are researchers able to estimate how many fetuses carry these genetic variations.
“But,” Biggio said, “it gives us some place new to look, and gives us a little more hope that we may be able to identify something we can treat.”
