Preterm birth, which occurs when a baby is born before 37 weeks of gestation, affects nearly 10% of pregnancies worldwide, and rates are on the rise. Researchers at the McKelvey School of Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis are developing better ways to predict preterm birth by analyzing electrical activity during pregnancy.
Arye Nehorai, the Eugene & Martha Lohman Professor of Electrical Engineering in the Preston M. Green Department of Electrical & Systems Engineering, and Uri Goldsztejn, who earned a master's and a doctorate in biomedical engineering from Washington University in 2020 and 2022, respectively, developed a model using deep learning to predict preterm births as early as 31 weeks of pregnancy. Results of the research were published May 11 in PLoS One.
