Pregnancy should reach nine months. Babies should be born at term and two days later discharged home. But there are babies born preterm, immediately taken to the Intensive care unit, sometimes for weeks and even months with their families at their side not knowing if they will live or die.

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5 – 18% of all babies worldwide are born preterm

Preterm birth is the single major cause of death in children up to 5 years of age in the developed world and the leading single cause of global perinatal mortality and morbidity.

Infants born preterm are over 40 times more likely to die during the neonatal period than are term infants.

A significant proportion of preterm-born children experience short and long-term complications including respiratory impairment, feeding disorders, neurological disabilities, vision disorders, hearing impairment, developmental delay and cerebral palsy.

Cost

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Average premature birth costs are ten times higher than term birth

$49,000 compared to $4,500 in the US.

47% of the costs for all infant hospitalizations and 27% for all pediatric stays are due to preterm/low birth weight admissions. Preterm infants take up more than half of Neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) costs. The financial burden of treating preterm birth in the US alone is over $25B annually.

Existing solutions

There are a number of treatments for delaying preterm birth, yet all are unsatisfactory. This is why the rate of preterm births has not changed in decades. Treatments include medications, hormones (progesterone), surgical interventions (cerclage) and pessaries.

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Spontaneous Preterm Birth

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Preterm birth is a multifactorial problem. Spontaneous preterm birth occurs as a result of spontaneous onset of labour and accounts for the majority of preterm births in developed countries.

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The Biomechanical paradigm of spontaneous preterm birth is that an intervention situated high around the uterine cervix, decreasing cervical loading, will inhibit collagen network disruption and prevent spontaneous preterm birth.

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This is what PregnanTech's LIONESS does.