Women going into early preterm labor have low levels of progesterone in their saliva as early as 24 weeks of gestation, according to a new study in BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology (July 22, 2009).
Researchers from the University College London and King's College London collected specimens of saliva from women enrolled in a randomized trial of preventive treatment for preterm birth.
Their findings could lead to the development of a simple, noninvasive test to identify women at increased risk of delivering early, according to the researchers.
The study "backs up previous research which hinted at the importance of low saliva progesterone as a marker for labor onset," said lead author professor Lucilla Poston of the maternal and fetal research unit at King's College London. "We are now planning a much larger study to validate these preliminary findings," she added. "It would be wonderful if in the future we only had to ask a pregnant woman to produce a small sample of saliva to know whether or not she was at risk of very early premature birth."
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