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Published on: March 7, 2019
Monthly number of preterm births and environmental physical activity
Elyiahu Stoupel1, Lea Sirota, Micki Osovsky
1Departments of Neonatology Schneider Children's Medical Center of Israel, Petah Tiqwa. stoupel@inter.net.il
Insights
Environmental factors like solar and cosmic ray activity may influence preterm birth timing. This study found correlations in singleton births, but not in multiple pregnancies, suggesting other factors are dominant in those cases.
Area of Science:
- Environmental Science
- Public Health
- Astronomy
Background:
- External physical factors are increasingly linked to human homeostasis.
- Understanding environmental influences on pregnancy outcomes is crucial for public health.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the association between monthly environmental physical factors and the incidence of preterm births.
- To determine if solar, cosmic ray, and geomagnetic activity correlate with preterm birth rates in Israel.
Main Methods:
- A retrospective analysis of 1006 preterm infants born between 1995-2002 at an Israeli tertiary medical center.
- Monthly environmental data (solar, cosmic ray, geomagnetic activity) were collected from international monitoring facilities.
- Statistical correlations were performed between environmental indices and the monthly number of preterm births.
Main Results:
- A significant positive correlation was observed between preterm births and solar activity indices (r = .32, p = .0016).
- A significant inverse correlation was found between preterm births and cosmic ray activity indices (r = -0.3, p = .008).
- These correlations were significant for singleton births but not for multiple pregnancies.
Conclusions:
- Solar and cosmic ray activity may influence the timing of premature labor.
- The findings suggest a potential role for space weather in obstetric outcomes.
- Additional unidentified factors appear to dominate the timing of preterm birth in multiple pregnancies.
Unlabelled:
Recent studies have reported links between external physical factors and human homeostasis.
Objective:
to determine whether the monthly values of specific physical environmental factors are associated with the monthly number of preterm births in a major medical center in Israel.
Methods:
The sample included 1006 infants weighing less than 1500g born live to 774 mothers during 96 consecutive months (1995-2002) at a tertiary medical center in Israel. Monthly values of indices of solar, cosmic ray, and geomagnetic activity for the same period were obtained from national data monitoring facilities in the United States of America, Russia, and Finland. The findings were statistically correlated with the monthly number of preterm births.
Results:
The number of preterm births correlated with the month of the year (1-12), with a progressive rise in the number of infants born as the year progressed (p = .02). The monthly number of preterm births showed a significant and direct correlation with solar activity indices (r = .32, p = .0016), and a significant and inverse correlation with cosmic ray activity indices (r = -0.3, p = .008). The relation was significant only for singelton births and for the whole group of preterm newborns, but not for multiple pregnancies.
Conclusion:
Our findings suggest that solar and cosmic ray activity may play a role in the timing of premature labor, however in multiple pregnancies additional factors are dominant.
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