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Updated: Mar 24, 2026

Modeling Ascending Vaginal Infection, Preterm Birth, and Neonatal Morbidity in Mice
Published on: October 10, 2025
Maternal microbiome - A pathway to preterm birth
Angela E Vinturache1, Cynthia Gyamfi-Bannerman2, Joseph Hwang3
1Department of Paediatrics, Alberta Children's Hospital Research Institute, Cumming School of Medicine, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
Abstract:
Despite great medical advances in preventing maternal and infant mortality in the past century, one issue remains unresolved: why do so many women give birth prematurely? A major new field of human microbiome studies has begun to shed light on the impact of microbes (of both the commensal and pathogen varieties) on pregnancy outcomes. Recent advances in next-generation sequencing and metagenomic analysis have revealed that maternal microbiomes at a variety of niches including the oral, vaginal, gut, cervical, and even the placenta itself govern pregnancy outcomes. In this review, we describe how alterations in the microbial biomasses impact preterm birth and we discuss the major research questions concerning the cause and/or interdependent relationships between microbiome, infection, and preterm delivery.
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