Premature birth is on the rise globally and doctors are not sure how to remedy early labor. The March of Dimes issued a global report Sunday on premature births and the statistics reveal 12.9 million infants are born before 37 weeks of development. That equals nearly 10 percent of the annual worldwide birth total.

A new study of expectant mothers suggests that a group of common environmental contaminants called phthalates, which are present in many industrial and consumer products including everyday personal care items, may contribute to the country's alarming rise in preterm births.

The healthcare implications of being born premature are much broader and reach further into adulthood than previously thought, according to a long-term study of more than a million men and women by Duke University and Norwegian researchers.

The recent marketing of “at home” genomic tests for disease risk may be premature, according to Dr. Kenneth Offit, MD, MPH, Chief of the Clinical Genetics Service at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC).

An aspiring director of feature films and commercials captured the hearts of the public with an inspiring video that has won top prize in the March of Dimes “Every Baby Has a Story’’ public service ad contest.

When a child is born premature — and more than one in ten infants in the U.S. is — its future is already compromised. One of the common problems associated with premature births is “brittle bones,” or osteopenia of prematurity (OOP). It can cause bone fractures and rickets in the infant, and osteoporosis later in life.

A 29 year-old Russian music teacher has given birth to five girls 14 weeks premature at a maternity clinic in Oxford, southern England, British media said on Thursday.

When the bag of waters burst in the 20th week of pregnancy, the unborn child only had a very slim chance of surviving birth. The high risk of infection was not the only risk to Miriam's life. Her lungs stopped growing, and as a result she would have most probably suffocated after birth.

Two major studies published today in The New England Journal of Medicine can help doctors better identify pregnant women at risk for preterm delivery who can benefit from progesterone treatment, the March of Dimes Foundation said today.

Weekly progesterone injections do not prevent premature births in women pregnant with twins, a University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill study has found.

A study appearing in the July issue of the Journal of Periodontology found bacteria commonly found in the mouth and associated with periodontal diseases in the amniotic fluid of some pregnant women.

The costs due to complications from preterm birth are staggering. In Canada, outlays for specialized care of surviving preterm infants are estimated to be almost $2 billion per year. In a 5-year, randomized, placebo-controlled clinical study, researchers found that giving nitroglycerin to mothers who had entered premature labor led to significant improvement in their baby's health.