Pregnant women with low levels of education are nearly twice as likely as their more educated peers to deliver prematurely. The risk can be attributed to the disadvantages that come with poor education, rather than education level itself. Although a low socio-economic status has consistently been associated with a high risk of preterm birth, little is known about the impact of poor education on preterm birth. To examine the association between the education level of pregnant women and the risk of preterm birth, researchers from the Netherlands investigated the characteristics of 3830 pregnant women of Dutch origin, aged around 31 years. It was found that the women with the lowest educational level were 89 percent more likely to deliver earlier than normal than the highly educated women. However, women with low education also seemed to accumulate psychosocial stress and unhealthy lifestyle factors that turned out to be associated with their increased risk of preterm birth. For example, separate analyses for factors potentially related to preterm birth, including age, height, pregnancy related risk factors such as pre-eclampsia, financial concerns and long-lasting difficulties, psychological characteristics, smoking habits, alcohol consumption, and body mass, were each responsible for various degrees of risk. The combination of all these factors accounted for all but 10 percent of the extra risk of preterm birth associated with low education. Further research is required to explore other possible explanatory factors, such as the interval between pregnancies, diet, or the presence of bacterial vaginosis as being responsible for preterm birth.
Archives of Disease in Childhood - Fetal and Neonatal Edition
January 2009