A new research study released today shows rates of pre-term birth around the world have actually decreased over 30 years.

But the same research is showing that here in Australia, the rates of babies born before 37 weeks are increasing, a trend seen in several high-income countries.

Professor John Newnham AM, chair of the Australian Preterm Birth Prevention Alliance and a world-recognised leader in the prevention of pre-term birth, said in the developed world the rate has been rising but in the developing world, the Journal of American Medical Association suggests it could be falling.

“Half of all births in the world do not have a medical attendant, so as resources start increasing and you develop ultrasound, you then know the age of the pregnancy, and so your previous data then becomes very uncertain,” he told Liam Bartlett on 6PR Mornings.

“So across half the world at least, the actual age at which the birth occurs is very, very imprecise and so as people adopt more ultrasound in low-resource settings, the data becomes very confusing.

“It’s very hard to make overall conclusions. One thing is for sure, in sub-Sahara Africa the rate of pre-term birth is going up very rapidly, and across a lot of Africa.”

Press PLAY to hear more about the research and how the data could be skewed

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