Pregnant women who consume high amounts of fruit, vegetables, whole grains and water are significantly less likely to give birth prematurely, a new study has found.

A premature (preterm) delivery refers to any birth that takes place before 37 weeks gestation. This can lead to serious and long-term health problems for the children involved and accounts for almost three in four deaths among newborns.

Researchers in Norway, Sweden and Iceland decided to investigate whether a mother's diet was linked to premature deliveries. They analysed the births of 66,000 women that took place between 2002 and 2008. Of these, just over 3,500 were premature deliveries.

For the purpose of this study, a premature delivery was any delivery that occurred between 22 and 36 weeks gestation.

Factors that could have affected the results were taken into account, such as the mother's age and education.

The study identified three distinct dietary patterns:
-Prudent - this included high amounts of fruit, vegetables, whole grains and water
-Western - this included processed meats, white bread, salty snacks, sweet snacks and desserts
-Traditional - this included fish, potatoes, cooked vegetables and low fat milk.

The study found that women who consumed the ‘prudent' diet significantly reduced their risk of giving birth prematurely, particularly among those having their first child.

The risk was also lower among those who consumed a ‘traditional' diet, although not as much as with the ‘prudent' diet.

The researchers noted that the ‘Western' diet did not appear to be linked with an increased risk of premature deliveries. They said that this suggests that increasing the foods associated with the ‘prudent' diet is more important than totally cutting out processed and snack foods.

They added that these findings are important because the prevention of premature deliveries is an important public health issue and they encouraged pregnant women to eat a balanced diet rich in fruit, vegetables, whole grains and water.

Details of these findings are published in the British Medical Journal.

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