General Obstetrics and Gynecology: ObstetricsThe Alabama Preterm Birth Study: Intrauterine infection and placental histologic findings in preterm births of males and females less than 32 weeks
Section snippets
Material and methods
From December 5, 1996, to June 13, 2001, 457 consecutive deliveries of infants born between 23 and 32 weeks were evaluated.14 A chart review was performed by trained research nurses to gather demographic characteristics such as maternal race, age, parity, smoking status, diabetes, and pre-eclampsia and determine whether the delivery was spontaneous or indicated. Spontaneous preterm birth was defined as delivery after either spontaneous preterm labor or spontaneous preterm premature rupture of
Results
Table I shows the characteristics of the mothers of the male and female infants enrolled in this study. Male infants were more likely to come from spontaneous rather than indicated deliveries, (P = .025) and weighed about 100 g more (P = .008). There were no differences in corticosteroid or antibiotic use between male and female infants.
We next evaluated the relationship between infant sex and various markers of infection/inflammation. Male infants were significantly more likely to have a
Comment
In this study of 23- to 32-week deliveries, male infants were significantly more likely to be born following a spontaneous rather than indicated delivery and were also significantly more likely to have placental membrane bacterial infection. Because most early spontaneous preterm births are associated with, and probably caused by, placental membrane infection associated with acute placental inflammation,11, 12, 27 these data suggest that a portion of the increase in male versus female early
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Cited by (0)
Reprints not available from the authors. Address correspondence to Robert L. Goldenberg, MD, Department of Obstetrics/Gynecology, 1500 6th Avenue South, CRWH 379, Birmingham, AL 35233-1602.