Preventing late pregnancy complications

Robyn North, Lesley McCowan

Preeclampsia, fetal growth restriction (undernourished baby) and spontaneous preterm birth are the major complications of late pregnancy affecting one in five first time mothers. They are leading causes of illness and death in mothers and newborn babies. All three conditions have lifelong health consequences for the child. These range from severe disabilities including neuro-development delay, deafness and blindness, to milder learning and behavioural disabilities. Undernourished and premature babies are predisposed to developing high blood pressure, heart attacks and diabetes as adults. Known therapies could prevent almost one third of cases if high-risk women could be identified.

The SCOPE study is an international initiative to develop an early pregnancy screening test that will accurately predict which first time mothers are likely to develop preeclampsia or deliver small, premature babies. Preventative measures can then be taken to minimise or avoid these late pregnancy complications.

The SCOPE project involves screening 10,000 first time mothers (3,000 in Auckland) to develop a unique pregnancy biobank. One thousand Auckland women are already participating in SCOPE. The biobank is being used to discover novel biomarkers using proteomic, metabolomic and genomic technologies in participating universities in Australia, USA, England, Ireland and Sweden. Novel combinations of biomarkers will then be validated in the SCOPE biobank to translate this research into clinically useful tests to predict these conditions.

For more information about the SCOPE Project, please visit http://www.scopestudy.net

To view the TV3 news segment on SCOPE, please click here

To go back to pregnancy complications please click here