The clear, slightly yellowish amniotic fluid that envelops unborn babies during pregnancy harbors previously unidentified and unrecognized infection-causing microbes, researchers report online August 26 in P LoS ONE. The study adds evidence to the premise that infectious microbes found in amniotic fluid can cause premature birth. Screening the amniotic fluid with both conventional methods and a novel DNA sequencing approach, the scientists identified infectious bacteria or fungi in 25 of the 166 women in the study. To better study if infection leads to early birth, DiGiulio and colleagues, including researchers at the Wayne State University School of Medicine in Detroit , studied the amniotic fluid of 166 women who went into preterm labor at the Hutzel Womenâs Hospital in Detroit from 1998 to 2002. Of those women, the ones harboring the highest number of infectious bacteria had their babies the earliest â” a telling sign of the link between infection and premature birth, DiGiulio says. Currently he and his colleagues are studying fresh, rather than stored, amniotic fluid to see if it is possible to identify the infections before they induce preterm labor or premature birth. read more
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