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American Morning
House Call: Premature Birth Drug
Aired June 12, 2003 - 07:43 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Medical news this morning. A new hormone treatment for pregnant women may reduce the risk of premature delivery.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta at the CNN Center giving us details on this new study.
What's important here -- Sanjay? Good morning.
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Bill, yes, a couple of really important stories this morning. The first one, as you mentioned, looking at women who are at risk of preterm delivery -- that's going into labor and delivering the baby before the baby is actually due. This has been a problem. The numbers have actually been increasing over the past couple of decades. About 12 percent of pregnancies right now resulting in this complication. That's about 1,300 babies per day.
That got researchers' attention. Looking at a hormone now, specifically a hormone called progesterone, 17 alpha hydroxy progesterone, and they actually, split women into two groups. Over 300 women received this medication, 150 or so did not. These are all women who are at risk of preterm delivery.
And what they found was that over time, starting the injections at about 16 weeks of pregnancy and continuing them throughout the end of pregnancy, the risk reduction in women who received the medication was about 18.6 percent. That means 18.6 percent absolute risk reduction of having preterm delivery if you took this medication.
They also found some other benefits as well. The children who were born to women who received this medication had fewer complications such as enterizing (ph) analcolitis (ph) and a few other complications as well.
Now, there are women who are specifically at high risk of actually having what's called a preterm delivery. Take a look at the list of those women, women who are pregnant with twins, triplets or more, women who have had a previous preterm delivery, and women who have certain uterine abnormalities. Those are women who might benefit from this medication in the long run.
Also, Bill, coming up in the next hour, I want to talk about a medication growth hormone. This is a medication we typically hear about for adults, but now there has been some action in possibly approving this medication for kids, kids who have short stature, but otherwise healthy, may benefit from this medication in the future -- Bill.
HEMMER: All right, we'll see you then. Thank you, Sanjay.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.
Aired June 12, 2003 - 07:43 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Medical news this morning. A new hormone treatment for pregnant women may reduce the risk of premature delivery.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta at the CNN Center giving us details on this new study.
What's important here -- Sanjay? Good morning.
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Bill, yes, a couple of really important stories this morning. The first one, as you mentioned, looking at women who are at risk of preterm delivery -- that's going into labor and delivering the baby before the baby is actually due. This has been a problem. The numbers have actually been increasing over the past couple of decades. About 12 percent of pregnancies right now resulting in this complication. That's about 1,300 babies per day.
That got researchers' attention. Looking at a hormone now, specifically a hormone called progesterone, 17 alpha hydroxy progesterone, and they actually, split women into two groups. Over 300 women received this medication, 150 or so did not. These are all women who are at risk of preterm delivery.
And what they found was that over time, starting the injections at about 16 weeks of pregnancy and continuing them throughout the end of pregnancy, the risk reduction in women who received the medication was about 18.6 percent. That means 18.6 percent absolute risk reduction of having preterm delivery if you took this medication.
They also found some other benefits as well. The children who were born to women who received this medication had fewer complications such as enterizing (ph) analcolitis (ph) and a few other complications as well.
Now, there are women who are specifically at high risk of actually having what's called a preterm delivery. Take a look at the list of those women, women who are pregnant with twins, triplets or more, women who have had a previous preterm delivery, and women who have certain uterine abnormalities. Those are women who might benefit from this medication in the long run.
Also, Bill, coming up in the next hour, I want to talk about a medication growth hormone. This is a medication we typically hear about for adults, but now there has been some action in possibly approving this medication for kids, kids who have short stature, but otherwise healthy, may benefit from this medication in the future -- Bill.
HEMMER: All right, we'll see you then. Thank you, Sanjay.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.
