Active clinical trials for "Premature Birth"

The purpose of this study is to improve secondary prevention of ischemic stroke patients by Estimating prevalence and the prognostic significance of frequent premature atrial complexes in ischemic stroke patients in relation to death, recurrent stroke and atrial fibrillation. Characterize ischemic stroke patients by Echocardiographic characteristics Biochemical markers Plaque composition in the carotid arteries in order to improve risk stratification.

The purpose of this study is to determine if changes in specific gene products in the placenta or cord/infant blood affect a baby's birth weight, increase the risk of premature birth, or increase the risk of developing diseases of prematurity. We would also like to characterize whether placental epigenetic changes or placental markers of environmental exposures are associated with premature birth.

Neonatal nutritional management consists in reproducing miming uteri growth kinetic. Since the seventies, NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit) strategy consists in a high proteidic input (apport) supposed to allow optimal neurodevelopment. However, nutritional practices and strategies have significantly evolved during these last years, influenced by Baker nutritional imprinting concept (2002). Actually, neonatal high proteidic exposition could perturb metabolism and hormonal systems of newborns conducting to a reinforcement of obesity and cardio-vascular pathology prevalence in this target population at adulthood. In this context many studies emerged since 2000 and try to assess the trade-off between neurodevelopment and growth under nutrition conditions. EPIPOD try to focus the link between heterogenous proteic input dispensed in our NICU (described by tercil methods on population) and fat mass phenotype variations at discharge (described by tercil methods); and its consequences on neurodevelopmental growth. Understanding how particular nutritional exposition could determine "fatty" phenotype and impact neurodevelopment is clearly our main goal.

The purpose of this study is to understand reading abilities of children born preterm: their cognitive profiles, the neural basis of good and poor reading abilities, and the behavioral and neural factors that predict persistent difficulties. The investigators hope to learn what specific skills correlate reading skills if preterm children have different cognitive profiles than full term children with respect to reading if cognitive skills measured in kindergarten predict reading ability in the second grade if parts of the brain are associated with reading skill whether brain characteristics in kindergarten predict reading in second grade.

This is a research study to quantitatively assess the development of non-nutritive suck (NNS) and feeding readiness in preterm infants using a novel device, the NTrainer©, and to compare this with two clinical assessment tools, NOMAS and EFS.

The purpose of this study is to determine whether small for gestational preterm infants, have delayed or decrease gastric motility compared to appropriate for gestational age preterm infants.

To determine whether screening of pregnant women with history of previous preterm delivery or with premature contractions for bacterial vaginosis using VS-SENSE, and treatment of positive women will reduce the risk of spontaneous preterm birth.

The purpose of the study is to characterize innate immune function of premature infants, and identify defects that may be responsible for the development of bacterial sepsis.

The purpose of this study is to describe respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) hospitalization rates and to begin to address the utilization of outpatient resources for RSV medically-attended lower respiratory tract infections (MALRI) in 32-35 week gestational age (GA) premature infants who are less than 6 months of age and do not receive treatment.

Preterm labor is a leading cause of perinatal morbidity and mortality. Several investigators have reported that ultrasound evaluation of the cervix can predict the risk of preterm delivery. Three-dimensional ultrasound may provide additional information about how to best counsel parents about the chances of premature birth. This technology has the capability for accurate volume measurements of irregular structures that is superior to conventional ultrasound. Therefore, it is possible that three-dimensional ultrasound methods may better characterize cervical changes and the risk for preterm delivery. Our protocol will attempt to identify prognostic indicators of adverse pregnancy outcome by three-dimensional ultrasound. A maximum of 680 pregnant women with the diagnosis of preterm labor will be prospectively studied to characterize cervical morphology and volume as predictors of preterm delivery risk. These results will be correlated with placental pathology and pregnancy outcome. We will also compare the performance of conventional two-dimensional endovaginal ultrasound with three-dimensional ultrasound findings. This information is expected to improve our understanding about the nature and timing of cervical volume changes in relation to pregnancy outcome.