Tommy’s launches research centre to tackle premature birth

Today marks the launch of our ground-breaking National Centre for Preterm Birth Research, bringing together world-leading experts to reduce the number of babies born too soon.

We’re determined to save and change lives by tackling the problem of premature birth, which affects an estimated 53,000 babies every year in the UK.

Premature birth can have life-changing consequences, leaving children at higher risk of long-term complications including learning disabilities, hearing problems and visual impairment.

Many parents whose babies are born prematurely report ongoing feelings of anxiety, depression and guilt.

Women and birthing people from Black and Asian backgrounds and those living in the most deprived areas of the UK are more likely to experience premature birth than those from White backgrounds and those living in the least deprived areas.

Although most premature babies survive, premature birth remains the most common cause of death for children under 5 in the UK.

Our National Centre for Preterm Birth Research brings together researchers from 5 leading institutions: Imperial College London, University College London, King’s College London, Queen Mary University of London and the University of Leeds.

The centre’s teams will collaborate on a wide range of research projects investigating the causes and prevention of premature birth and the factors that increase risks for minoritised ethnic communities, as well as looking at the best ways to support parents of premature babies.

Kath Abrahams, Chief Executive of Tommy’s, said: 

At the moment, 6 babies are born prematurely every hour in the UK. That’s 1 in every 13.

Too many lives are being lost and too many families devastated by premature birth, which happens without warning in the vast majority of cases.

Alarmingly, the UK is not on track to meet the Government’s target of reducing premature birth from 8% to 6% by 2025.

We’ve established the Tommy’s National Centre for Preterm Birth Research to drive progress by bringing together experts who can advance our understanding of preterm birth and deliver new treatments to predict and prevent it. We’re determined to save and improve thousands of lives.

The most recent figures from the Office for National Statistics show that in 2021, the proportion of premature births in the UK was 7.6% overall – higher than the average across Europe and up from 7.4% in 2020, after three years of falling rates.

Among people from Black backgrounds, 8.7% of live births were premature, with the highest rate of 10.2% among those of Black Caribbean heritage.

And between 2020 and 2021, the biggest percentage increase in preterm live births was among people of Asian heritage, from 7.5% to 8.1%.

More than 20 research projects are currently planned as part of the centre’s work. They will investigate issues including:

• The causes of cervical shortening, which increases the risk of premature birth. Although a cervical stitch or progesterone treatment can help, they are not always effective.
• Understanding the mechanisms that causes labour to start, and how these might be going wrong in premature birth.
• The involvement of parents in decision-making about the care of extremely premature babies, understanding the best approach to communication so that parents are supported to be part of their babies’ care.  

The Tommy’s National Centre for Preterm Birth Research will be led by Professor Catherine Williamson, Professor of Women’s Health at Imperial College London.

Professor Williamson said: 

It is a privilege to be Director of the Tommy’s National Centre for Preterm Birth Research. By bringing leading researchers in the field together to pursue ambitious, collaborative projects, we aim to make a big impact on our understanding of the causes of premature birth and to use this knowledge to design better treatments.