Black women more likely to deliver premature babies

Research involving more than 368,000 births in Missouri concludes that Black women are more than twice as likely to deliver babies prematurely than white women.  Normal pregnancies last about 40 weeks.  The study looked at women who gave birth after 20 to 34 weeks and found about nine percent of Black births happened in the 20 to 34-week period.  For white women, it was only three percent.

The findings by a Washington Univesity researcher are published in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology today.  Researcher Louis Muglia says his findings suggest genetics will determine when a woman delivers.