Preventing risk of pre-term birth

Dr. Dilly Anumba, Senior Clinical Lecturer and Consultant Obstetrician along with Professor Brian Brown from the University of Sheffield’s medical physics department have designed a new kind of medical probe which will be used to identify women who are more at risk of having a premature baby. The new electrical impedance probe uses a small electrical current, which is too slight to be felt by the patient. It measures the resistance of the cervical tissue to electrical current, determining whether it is ‘soft’ or ‘hard’– the less resistance there is, the softer the tissue and the more likely a woman is to go into labour. The probe will be key in developing interventions to prevent pre-term births.

A license has been granted to a based partner and further research is being conducted at Sheffield .