They Say: See Your Dentist To Avoid Pre-Term Labour

A new study from the Journal of Clinical Microbiology is estimating that up to 80 percent of pre-term labours could be caused by mouth bacteria—the kind that are usually in your mouth and don’t cause much trouble there, but can apparently cause an immune reaction and labour if they get into the bloodstream, say through a cut in the gum or cheek.

Assuming further research bears this out (which it may or may not), it’s one of those findings that I have very mixed feelings about.

On the one hand, given all the various problems that we know prematurity, even late prematurity, causes, identifying a reason for it is huge and exciting.

On the other hand, I can just see every woman with a preemie being told it’s her fault for not brushing her teeth enough. Do we need another thing for pregnant women to freak out about? Especially since this is normal mouth bacteria, and it’s probably going to get into the bloodstream from time to time no matter what you do. In fact, I’ll bet that obsessive attempts at oral hygeine would probably backfire (think about those bleeding gums if you haven’t flossed in a while).

Of course the other approach the article mentions—prophylactic antibiotics—sounds like a prescription for resistant bugs and nasty yeast infections unless you could target high-risk people pretty carefully.

The one fairly concrete takeaway from the article is the suggestion to see a dentist before pregnancy to make sure you don’t have peridontal disease, and clearing it up if you do. That could be a useful thing to add to general pre-conception recommendations. Anything else, I think I’d want a separate study showing it really worked before anyone began adding another item to the pregnancy “thou shalts.”

Photo by martinhoward.