Premature Birth A birth that occurs before the 37th week of gestation A birth that occurs before the 37th week of pregnancy is considered premature. Although researchers have long sought a way to prevent premature birth, an estimated 9% of infants are...

The usual length of a human pregnancy is 38-42 weeks after the first day of the last menstrual period. Labor is a natural series of events that indicate that the birth process is starting. Premature labor is defined as contractions that occur after 20...

Premature birth (also known as preterm birth) is the birth of a baby before the standard period of pregnancy is completed. In most systems of human pregnancy, prematurity is considered to occur when the baby is born sooner than 37 weeks after the...

Inside Iraq Premature birth followed hard by premature death Sunday, August 6, 2000 Basra, Iraq -- In heat so intense that rays of sunlight seemed to have weight, the cracked and bumpy cemetery grounds waited for the boy who was to...

A biological clock that starts ticking early in pregnancy may largely determine when a woman will deliver her baby, according to a study that suggests a possible way to prevent premature births. Evidence for the clock appeared when researchers found abnormal hormone levels...

Genetics may play a greater role than previously thought in accounting for black women's higher rate of premature births, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine have found.Experts have long attributed the racial disparity in part to poverty, disparate access to medical care and other...

A new center at Duke University will become the first to study why more babies are born premature or underweight in the South than elsewhere in the nation.These conditions, which contribute to infant mortality, had been declining but in recent years have started to increase...