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MURRAY — Christina Merrill's first baby was born early, at only 25 weeks.
"As many of us know, that is much, much too early, and we lost her," she said. "However, with that pregnancy, it became apparent that I was in this group of ladies who, if we'd maybe known a little bit earlier, we maybe could've done something for it."
With her two later pregnancies, she and doctors "took actions" to ensure her children were delivered safely, Merrill explained. Though both were born early and had to stay in neonatal intensive care at first, they survived and are "beautiful, healthy children," she said.
On Tuesday, Merrill and health care officials gathered at Intermountain Medical Center in Murray to announce the launch of the new Prevent PTB study, funded by Sera Prognostics, that could help prevent premature births.
One in 10 babies were affected by premature birth in the U.S. in 2016, a rate that began rising in 2015, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
And infants born before 37 weeks are at a higher risk for disabilities and death, the centers add.
Utah's numbers are consistent with the U.S. average and increased in 2016, according to the Utah Department of Health.
The department adds that about half of premature births are caused by pregnancy complications and maternal health factors — other causes are "unexplained."
Sometimes doctors can identify patients who are at risk for early births because of their histories of early births or clinical factors in their current pregnancies, said Dr. D. Ware Branch, medical director of Intermountain Healthcare's Women and Newborns Clinical Program and principal investigator of the study.
But most patients who deliver infants prematurely "are not identified" with risk factors, he said, and those patients make up the study's target population.
Intermountain Healthcare is studying the PreTRM maternal blood test, developed by Sera Prognostics, to find women at risk for premature birth and evaluate the impact of early interventions in those who have a high risk.
The blood test measures and analyzes "a pattern of proteins in the blood," and focuses on two protein patterns with "high predictive performance," health care officials explained.
Previous research involving more than 5,500 women has shown that the test can identify patients who are at an increased risk for giving birth earlier than 37 weeks, even if they don't have risk factors — like previous preterm birth, a shortened cervix or other risk factors, health care officials said.
The new study will involve up to 10,000 women recruited at five Intermountain hospitals, half of whom will undergo normal medical screening while the other half will give a blood sample for the maternal blood test.
"One of the reasons why this study is going to be so important to do here at Intermountain is that we have a long history of having patients who care about having the best outcome that they can for themselves and for helping other people," said Dr. Sean Esplin, a maternal-fetal specialist at Intermountain Medical Center and director of research for women and newborn services for Intermountain Healthcare.
Those in the study who are found to be at risk for premature birth will receive "increased surveillance," preventive care and medications, Branch said.
Those at low risk for premature birth will receive their regular care from their providers, Branch added.
"Preterm birth is the biggest problem that we face in obstetrics. Out of every 100 women that walk through my door and that I'm going to take care of, I know that 10 of them are going to have a preterm birth. I just don't know which 10 they are," Esplin said.
He said premature birth often has "lifelong effects" for patients and patients' families.
"Knowledge is power, and part of the problem is that people don't know when they're at risk," Esplin said, adding that a woman's first preterm birth often catches doctors by surprise.
"But once we know someone's at risk, we have interventions that we can offer that have been proven to be successful," he said.
Branch said the study's "primary outcome" will be to see whether doctors can reduce the rate of preterm births. The secondary outcome will be to see if doctors can "improve neonatal outcomes" when women deliver infants early, by delaying the deliveries or by improving natal care before pre-term births, he said.
Dr. Gregory C. Critchfield, chairman and CEO of Sera Prognostics, said this is the first time a test like it has been "put into a clinical study to proactively identify patients."
He said once the test is complete, "it will be time to talk to insurance companies to make the test broadly available across the U.S. and across populations of the world to actually make a difference in the health care of mothers and babies."
