Preterm birth: it could be the result of a tug of war between mother and baby

Regulating the duration of pregnancy and the moment of delivery is a real tug of war between the genes of the mother and those of the fetus, which have conflicting interests: while the genome of the woman favors an early onset of labour, in the interest of its own survival, that of the unborn child aims instead to prolong the pregnancy as much as possible. The result is something of a compromise, and the genes behind this ‘agreement’ have been brought to light in a large study published in the journal nature genetics and led by the Swedish University of Gothenburg. The findings pave the way for the development of drugs to prevent premature births, but also to induce labour.

Globally, preterm births (i.e. those occurring before the 37th week of pregnancy) are the most frequent cause of death among infants and children up to 5 years of age, and the earlier the birth is, the higher the risk. Researchers led by Pol Solé Navais they therefore tried to investigate the genetic causes underlying these events, in a study involving more than 279,000 individuals. The data thus obtained allowed the identification of numerous previously unknown genetic variants associated with the time of delivery, which provide valuable information on the underlying biological mechanisms.

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The authors of the study, examining 136,833 cases, also tried to understand whether the length of gestation is determined by the genes of the woman or the fetus, and the results support the hypothesis of a genetic struggle between mother and child. “What we see is that there may be a conflict between the genomes of the woman and the unborn child when it comes to the duration of the pregnancy,” comments Navais, “that eventually they reach a sort of compromise agreement.”

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