A study developed in Holland reveals that pregnant women who have a low level of formal education are more likely than the rest to suffer preterm birth.
Most of the risk seems to come from the disadvantages of having a low educational quality, rather than the value of the curriculum itself.
A team led by Pauline W. Jansen of the Rotterdam Medical Center at the University of Erasmus investigated 3,830 Dutch pregnant women about 31 years of age and found that those with a lower educational level were a 89 percent more likely to have preterm birth than those with more formal education. Apparently women with low educational levels accumulate more psychological stress and have unhealthy lifestyles such as smoking, alcohol consumption and a higher body mass index in addition to economic problems and other difficulties.
Dr. Jansen herself commented that "The factors identified in the study, such as young age, stress, smoking or overweight, can be modified through different interventions" and suggest investing in modifiable risk reduction policies and in the investigation of other factors such as the interval between pregnancies, diet and bacterial vaginosis.
The study definitely shows that women with fewer resources and less healthy habits have a higher risk of preterm birth than the rest. Perhaps this headline would be more correct than directly associating it with the level of studies although one thing is usually related to the other.
You never know, maybe one day the time will come when the educational level will not determine the position in society.
