Abstract
There is well-established literature indicating change in partner as a risk for preeclampsia, yet the research on the risk of preterm birth after a change in partners has been sparse and inconsistent. Using a population of California live born singletons, we aimed to determine the risk of preterm birth after a change in partner between the first and second pregnancies. The risk of preterm and early term delivery in the second pregnancy was calculated for mothers who did or did not change partners between births with the referent group as women who delivered both pregnancies at term and did not change partners. Adjusted odds ratios (ORs) and their 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were calculated. Relative to women who delivered at 39 weeks or later in the second pregnancy and did not change partners, preterm birth risks were somewhat lower for women who changed partners between the first and second pregnancies compared to those women who did not change partners. For example, 10.6% of women who did not change partners and delivered their second pregnancy before 34 weeks also delivered their first pregnancy before 34 weeks, while 8.5% of women who changed partners delivered before 34 weeks. Findings suggest partner change may alter the risk of preterm birth.
Acknowledgments
An abstract of these findings was presented as a poster at the 36th Annual Pregnancy Meeting of the Society of Maternal Fetal Medicine, February 1–4, 2016 in Atlanta, Georgia. This study was supported, in part, by funding from the Preterm Birth Initiative – California, University of California San Francisco School of Medicine, March of Dimes Prematurity Research Center at Stanford University, the Stanford Child Health Research Institute, and the Stanford Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA) to Spectrum (UL1 TR001085). The CTSA program is led by the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Also supported in part by the March of Dimes Prematurity Research Center Ohio Collaborative, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and The Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Development (R00-HD65786). The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the NIH.
Conflict of interest statement: The authors report no conflicts of interest or personal financial disclosures.
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The authors stated that there are no conflicts of interest regarding the publication of this article.
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