Can we prevent preterm labour?

Professor Teo, pre-term labour is a major problem in terms of pregnancy and what do we know about reducing the risk of pre-term labour? Very good question, in fact pre-term labour and delivery is the biggest cause of babies and kids dying below five years of age throughout the world. Pre-term labour is a multi-factorial cause, what myself and colleagues of mine are trying to do is looking for all the causes of pre-term labour so that we can actually stop it from happening. It's like this, if we have this key where we turn it on when you are near your due date, similarly wouldn't it be great if we switched it off if people come in threatening for pre-term labour delivery. I mean the survival rates at 24 weeks are very poor as opposed to 34 weeks. So it would be great to move these pregnancies along. what our research group looks at are factors causing this, associated with and how we can reduce that risk.