$5.3 million in funding to expand national preterm birth prevention program
The Australian Preterm Birth Prevention Alliance and Women’s Healthcare Australasia have warmly welcomed the awarding of $5.3 million in Federal Government funding to expand Australia’s world-first national program to safely reduce rates of preterm and early term birth.
The announcement, made today by the Assistant Minister for Health, The Hon Ged Kearney, continues the Commonwealth’s long-standing commitment to improving the health and wellbeing of Australian women, mothers and their babies.
Chair of the Australian Preterm Birth Prevention Alliance, Professor John Newnham, said the continuation of funding will enable the Commonwealth-funded Australian Preterm Birth Prevention National Program to improve pregnancy outcomes for more women across the country.
“It has been inspiring to see the amazing work being done by the hospital teams participating in the first phase of the national program,” he said.
“These teams have generously shared ideas, know-how and data with each other on how to support more women to safely continue their pregnancy to 39 weeks. Together they have already averted more than 4,000 untimely early births, making a big impact on the lives of those children and their families.”
“The Alliance and WHA will be working in partnership with maternity consumers, First Nations leaders jurisdiction partners and maternity hospitals across Australia to ensure Australia is the world’s first nation to strategically and safely lower its rate of untimely and harmful early birth.”
Preterm birth remains the leading cause of death and disability in children under the age of five worldwide and can lead to serious health and development implications including cerebral palsy, deafness, blindness and learning and behavioural problems.
A 2020 analysis revealed that the annual cost of untimely early birth to the Australian Government was $1.4 billion each year with more than $350 million of this spend on those needing education assistance due to their early birth.
More than 60 Australian maternity services participated in the first round of the Program which concluded in March 2024, representing 54% of Australia’s annual public births. Final outcome data is set to be released in the coming months.
CEO of Women’s Healthcare Australasia, Dr Barb Vernon, said the renewed funding for the Every Week Counts National Program will spread best practice prevention care to even more maternity hospitals across the country.
“There’s strong interest from hospitals that missed out on the first Collaborative to join this inspiring Program and learn about evidence-based strategies for better detecting and responding to risk factors for early birth” Dr Vernon said.
Key areas of focus for the second phase include: partnering with women and families to support information decision-making, early pregnancy screening for preterm birth risk factors, safely prolonging pregnancy by reducing early term caesareans or inductions, and implementing culturally safe continuity of care models for First Nations women and babies.
“Unfortunately, First Nations babies are twice as likely as non-indigenous babies to be born too early,” Dr Vernon said. “We know we need to expand access to culturally safe and trauma-informed maternity care services, co-designed and delivered with First Nations communities and healthcare professionals if we are serious about addressing this inequity.”
To-date, seven key clinical strategies, developed by the Australian Preterm Birth Prevention Alliance, have been used to safely lower the rate of preterm and early term birth.
The strategies include: avoiding ending pregnancies before 39 weeks gestation, prescribing vaginal progesterone to women with a shortened cervix or a history of spontaneous preterm birth, promoting the importance of continuity of carer, and strongly discouraging smoking whilst pregnant.
An eighth clinical strategy is currently being considered for implementation, based on successful research trials.
This strategy involves screening of women at 11-14 weeks of pregnancy to predict those cases of pre-eclampsia (high blood pressure of pregnancy) that will lead to early preterm birth. About 10% of early preterm births are due to pre-eclampsia and identification of those cases at risk enables prescription of a treatment that will prevent about 60% of cases.
