Editorial: The mechanisms of parturition and preterm birth

Abstract

Editorial on the Research TopicThe mechanisms of parturition and preterm birth Parturition is a complex process involving changes at the hormonal, physiological, morphological, immune, and metabolic levels. Worldwide, preterm birth (PTB), defined as parturition occurring between 20 and 37 weeks of gestation, is a major determinant of neonatal mortality and morbidity, often with long-term adverse effects on the health of both mother and child.In recent decades, the incidence of PTB has continued to rise in most countries. According to the World Health Organization, the rate of PTB across 184 countries is reported to be 5~18% of all births. Therefore, it is urgent to find ways to prevent preterm labor, and for this, a better understanding of the mechanisms behind it and those associated with parturition is necessary.In this Research Topic we bring together important papers that carefully disclose the mechanisms of parturition and preterm birth and provide potential technologies and biomarkers to understand and predict them. This will definitely help us find more effective clinical interventions to prevent preterm birth and improve the outcome of parturition in the future.Innovation of instrumentation and methods remains the major step in an understanding of the processes involved in birth. The use of electromyography (EMG) for parturition and preterm birth prediction has been found to have higher specificity and sensitivity (1, 2). Recently, H Liu's group graded uterine EMG activities during labor and suggested Low-grade EMG indicated high possibility of oxytocin treatment in the followup labor process and also longer first stage and total labor time (3). In this Research Topic, Romero-Morales et al. enhanced classification of preterm-term birth using continuous wavelet transform and entropy-based methods of electrohysterogram (EHG) signals, and Qi et al. reported two fetal membrane indicators derived from Magnetic Resonance Imaging that can predict premature rupture of membranes (PROM) and preterm premature rupture of membranes (PPROM). Olmos-Ramıŕez et al. have also found that uterine activity modified responses of the fetal autonomic nervous system at preterm active labor using a novel time-frequency analysis of fetal heart rate variability (FHRV). Besides this significant progress, Hussein et al. reported lowered expression of soluble Fms-like Frontiers in Endocrinology frontiersin.org 01