Curable infection linked to early birth.

Pregnant women suffering from a common vaginal infection are 40 percent more likely to give birth to premature, low-birthweight infants than are uninfected pregnant women.

Two studies published in the Dec. 28, 1995 New England Journal of Medicine indicate that bacterial vaginosis-a condition in which various unwanted bacteria displace normal vaginal bacteria-increases the chances of premature birth. Common antibiotics can cure the infection and reduce the risk.

"This condition is a preventable cause of preterm birth," says Sharon L. Hillier of the University of Pittsburgh's Magee-Women's Hospital. "Unfortunately, it is not taken very seriously by health care providers."

Hillier led a team of U.S. researchers that studied 10,397 pregnant women. Overall, 16 percent of the women had the infection, whose symptoms include a fishy odor and excessive vaginal discharge. Six percent of infected women gave birth to premature infants, whereas only 4 percent of the women without the infection had preemies.

John C. Hauth and his colleagues at the University of Alabama at Birmingham studied 624 women who were at high risk of giving birth prematurely because they either were very thin or had a history of premature births. The researchers gave standard antibiotic treatment or a placebo to the participants, regardless of whether they showed symptoms of infection. Of the women later documented to have had bacterial vaginosis, one-third delivered prematurely after the treatment, whereas half of those in the placebo group had preemies.

Hillier recommends that pregnant women mention any symptoms of vaginal infection to their doctors and get treatment if they have bacterial vaginosis.