Effort to develop premature birth test

A test to identify women likely to give birth more than three weeks before their due date is being worked on by Cork-based researchers.

Such a test would mean women identified as being at risk could potentially avail of emerging drug treatments to prevent giving birth inside 37 weeks.

The advantages of developing such a screening test for early pregnancy were outlined by Professor Louise Kenny, head of INFANT, the country’s only perinatal research centre, following an announcement yesterday that the UCC-linked centre is to receive €13.6m in funding.