[Threatening preterm birth--to deliver the baby or stop contractions?]

Five to six percent of babies are born preterm (before completed 37 weeks of pregnancy) in Finland. Efforts should be made to recognize those patients at greatest risk for preterm labour. Before possible attempts of tocolytic therapy fetal distress, true labour or manifest infection should be ruled out. The prognosis of preterm infants can be improved by concentrating very preterm births (before 30 weeks) to tertiary hospitals, giving antenatal corticosteroid therapy, diagnosing subclinical infection and timing the deliveries in order not to dispose the fetus to prolonged inflammation.