Pregnant women who spontaneously go into labour prematurely may have an increased risk of suffering a stroke or developing heart problems later in life, a new study has found.

Dutch researchers carried out an extensive analysis of 10 studies involving women from five European countries - Scotland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland.

The number of participants in these studies ranged from just over 3,700 to more than 923,000, and the follow-up periods ranged from 12 to 35 years.

The studies all looked at any links between spontaneous premature (preterm) births and stroke, heart disease and overall cardiovascular health. A preterm delivery is defined as a delivery before 37 weeks gestation.

The researchers found that spontaneous preterm deliveries were linked with an increased risk of all of these heart conditions. For example, the risk of developing fatal or non-fatal ischaemic heart disease rose by 38% among those who had spontaneously given birth prematurely, while the risk of fatal and non-fatal stroke jumped by 71%.

Those who gave birth prematurely were also at least twice as likely to develop other cardiovascular diseases.

These increased risks were ‘observed consistently' and the strength of the link was described as ‘robust'.

The researchers pointed out that an estimated 5-11% of births in Europe are preterm, and while one-third of these are medically indicated, e.g. because of pre-eclampsia, the rest are spontaneous. In many of these cases, the reason for a woman going into labour early is unknown.

They suggested that a history of spontaneous preterm deliveries may help to identify women who are at an increased risk of heart problems and these women ‘should be encouraged to optimise modifiable risk factors to reduce their risk of future cardiovascular disease'.

Details of these findings are published in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology.

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