Overview
Preterm birth is delivery before 37 completed weeks of gestation and is a leading contributor to neonatal morbidity and mortality worldwide. It is subclassified by gestational age into late preterm, very preterm, and extremely preterm categories, with the degree of prematurity strongly influencing survival and the risk of complications affecting the respiratory, gastrointestinal, neurological, and immune systems. Preterm birth arises from spontaneous preterm labour, preterm premature rupture of membranes, or medically indicated delivery, and its risk is shaped by maternal health, infection, nutritional status, multiple gestation, and obstetric history. Prevention and management focus on antenatal identification of risk, optimisation of maternal nutrition and care, and specialised neonatal support after birth. Research indexed under this topic addresses maternal factors relevant to pregnancy outcome, including hemoglobin concentration and anaemia, nutrition during pregnancy, gestational diabetes, and pharmacological exposures, as well as complications in preterm infants such as necrotizing enterocolitis. It also considers fetal surgery, maternal nutritional status among adolescent and urban pregnant women, and the broader perinatal context that influences gestational length. Approaches span clinical, nutritional, and epidemiological study. By examining the determinants and consequences of early delivery, this body of work supports efforts to reduce preterm birth and improve outcomes for mothers and newborns within the perinatal and neonatology sciences.
Research published in this journal
12 peer-reviewed articles, ranked by relevance. Each links to its DOI.
How this research is being cited
The 12 articles above have been cited 51 times in the scholarly literature. Citation data via OpenAlex and Crossref, updated Jun 2026.
-
2025 · Food Science & Nutrition
-
K. P. Kariyawasam et al. · 2025 · Food Science & Nutrition
-
2025 · Pteridines
-
2024 · BioMed Target Journal
-
2024 · Children
-
2024 · Nutrients
-
2024 · Breastfeeding Medicine
-
2024 · Gastroenterology & Endoscopy
A sample of recent works citing this journal's research on Preterm Birth, linking to each citing work.