Pregnant women could soon be given a blood test to detect if their unborn babies are at risk of being stillborn.
One in 20 babies are starved in the womb, through a malfunction in the placenta or poor blood flow through the umbilical cord. These tiny babies are at risk of dying, or can be left with cerebral palsy, with such risks often going undetected.
But scientists at Queen Mary University of London have found a protein in a mother’s blood, called DLK1, which gives a biological read-out of a baby’s wellbeing and how much it has grown in the womb. In a study of 129 first-time mothers, raised levels of DLK1 were linked to babies struggling to grow through pregnancy complications.
The study, published in the journal Nature Genetics, means in future doctors could predict these complications and deliver a baby early, saving its life. Professor Andrew Shennan, clinical director of Tommy’s Prematurity Birth Clinic at St Thomas’ Hospital, London, said: ‘Getting clues early on to the health of a baby from a simple test would allow us to spend more time with a mother, doing scans and surveillance.’
Daily Mail