News Release

Dr. Brenna Anderson publishes commentary in BJOG

Peer-Reviewed Publication

Care New England

Brenna Anderson, MD, of the Division of Maternal-Fetal Medicine at Women & Infants of Rhode Island and an associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology at The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University, has published a commentary in the current issue of BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, now available online. The commentary is entitled "The time has come to consider neonatal outcomes when designing embryo transfer policies."

Dr. Anderson offers her commentary in response to an article in the same issue by Kamphius et al. in which the authors seek to determine "whether an individual's preterm birth risk should be incorporated into embryo transfer policy for women undergoing in vitro fertilization."

Dr. Anderson writes, "Kamphius et al. considered only one risk factor for preterm birth, albeit the most important one: prior preterm birth … While preterm birth is an important factor to consider in subsequent preterm birth risk, one wonders whether a more accurate prediction could be generated using a more complex model, akin to the model developed as part of the Eunice Kenney Shriver National Institutes of Child Health and Human Development's Neonatal Research Network's calculator for outcomes among extremely preterm infants."

She explains that this model calculates risk of preterm birth using five clinical factors: gestational age at birth, birthweight, gender, receipt of antenatal corticosteroids, and multiple gestations. "This calculator might provide a risk of preterm birth as well as an average anticipated length of gestation," Dr. Anderson explains. "Such a tool, if reliable and easy to use, would be highly useful for patients and clinicians contemplating embryo transfer."

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About Women & Infants Hospital

Women & Infants Hospital of Rhode Island, a Care New England hospital, is one of the nation's leading specialty hospitals for women and newborns. A major teaching affiliate of The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University for obstetrics, gynecology and newborn pediatrics, as well as a number of specialized programs in women's medicine, Women & Infants is the eighth largest stand-alone obstetrical service in the country with nearly 8,400 deliveries per year. A U.S.News 2014-15 Best Children's Hospital in Neonatology, in 2009, Women & Infants opened the country's largest, single-family room neonatal intensive care unit.

New England's premier hospital for women and newborns, Women & Infants and Brown offer fellowship programs in gynecologic oncology, maternal-fetal medicine, urogynecology and reconstructive pelvic surgery, neonatal-perinatal medicine, pediatric and perinatal pathology, gynecologic pathology and cytopathology, and reproductive endocrinology and infertility. It is home to the nation's only mother-baby perinatal psychiatric partial hospital, as well as the nation's only fellowship program in obstetric medicine.

Women & Infants has been designated as a Breast Center of Excellence from the American College of Radiography; a Center of Excellence in Minimally Invasive Gynecology; a Center for In Vitro Maturation Excellence by SAGE In Vitro Fertilization; a Center of Biomedical Research Excellence by the National Institutes of Health; and a Neonatal Resource Services Center of Excellence. It is one of the largest and most prestigious research facilities in high risk and normal obstetrics, gynecology and newborn pediatrics in the nation, and is a member of the National Cancer Institute's Gynecologic Oncology Group and the National Institutes of Health's Pelvic Floor Disorders Network.


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