PARIS: A simple low-cost silicon ring can slash
the risk of premature birth, a major cause of death in newborns and health
problems in adult life, according to a trial reported on Tuesday by The Lancet.
Spanish
doctors tested the 38 euro ($49.50) device, known as a pessary, on women in
their last three months of pregnancy who had cervical shortening, a condition
that weakens the pelvic floor and leads to pre-term birth.
The
pessary is designed to strengthen the cervix -- the lower end of the uterus
that leads to the vagina -- so that it can cope with the extra weight of the
final weeks of pregnancy.
Silicon
pessaries have been used over the past 50 years as one of several methods to
prevent pre-term births.
But
their effectiveness has been debated, and this was the first time the device
had been investigated in a randomised trial.
Six
percent of women who were fitted with the pessary gave birth prematurely,
compared to 27 percent of counterparts who did not have the device, according
to the study.
The
so-called PECEP trial recruited 15,000 women who underwent ultrasound
examination in five hospitals when they were in between 20 and 23 weeks of
pregnancy.
Of
these, 380 had cervical shortening -- defined as a having a cervix whose length
was 25mm (0.98 inches) or less -- and were randomly assigned to one of two
groups, each comprising 190 women.
In the
pessary group, 12 had a baby before 34 weeks of pregnancy, while the number in
the non-pessary group was 51.
No side
effects were reported in the pessary group, and 95 percent of its participants
said they would recommend the treatment for others.
"Placement
of a pessary is an affordable procedure, non-invasive and easy to insert and
remove as required," said lead researcher Maria Goya, an obstetrician at
the Vall d'Hebron University Hospital in Barcelona.
-
AFP/al
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