Namavar Jahromi et al. In this study, we retrospectively followed the women who were admitted for preterm spontaneous uterine con- tractions (PSUC) and several maternal risk factors, complications and neonatal outcomes were evaluated. Materials and Methods All of the 327 pregnant women who were admitted for PSUC in Hafez Hospital from 23rd September 2007 to 28th February 2009 were included in this study. Data were collected retrospectively from the admission charts. PTL was confirmed for every pa- tient according to ACOG criteria if the patient had 4 contractions in 20 minutes or 8 in 60 minutes plus progressive changes in the cervix and cervical dilata- tion greater than 1 cm and cervical effacement of 80 percent or greater.1 However, the patients with docu- mented PSUC without cervical changes were consid- ered to have threatened PTL.3 Gestational ages were calculated from the first day of the last menstrual pe- riod and confirmed by ultrasound scan and if it was less than 259 days, the pregnancy was considered to be preterm. The patients were managed according to the standard protocols after admission.6 Simultaneous maternal risk factors such as history of previous PTB, abortion, infertility, infectious dis- eases, uterine diseases, endocrine or any organ system diseases were evaluated. Data about pregnancy com- plications such as rupture of membranes (ROM), vagi- nal bleeding, poly- or oligohydramnious, diabetes, hy- pertensive disorders were extracted from the hospital charts. The cases were followed up to delivery and the time interval between admission for PSUC and birth, their neonatal outcomes like birth weight, gestational age at delivery, number and duration of NICU admis- sions, congenital anomalies and neonatal deaths were also evaluated. The cases were classified according to their fetal numbers and studied separately. This study was approved by Shiraz University of Medical Sci- ences Review Board. Statistical analysis was per- formed by SPSS software (Version 16, Chicago, IL, USA) using Kruskal-Wallis, Mann-Whitney U and Fisher's exact tests for analysis and p<0.05 was con- sidered significant. During September 2007 and February 2009, 6124 deliveries occurred in Hafez Hospital and there were Results 878 327 pregnant women who were admitted for the man- agement of spontaneous preterm labor during this time period. Among the 327 women who entered this study, there were 297 (90.82%) singleton, 27 (8.25%) twin and 3 (0.91%) triplet pregnancies. The mean maternal age was 26±5.16 years for the singleton group, 25.2±4.6 years for the twin group and 24.6±4.0 years for the triplet group respectively (p=0.4). The mean gestational age at the admission time was 230±24.6 days for the singleton group, 228± 2.9 days for the twin group and 225.6± 11.5 days for the triplet group ( p=0.5). Simultaneous maternal diseases and the obstetrical complications of these women are presented in Table 1 and Table 2. Nine singleton women (3%) out of 297 were considered to have true PTL based on ACOG criteria and delivered in 59.2±131.7 hours from the admission time. However, 288 singletons (97%) were categorized in threatened PTL group without any progressive cervical changes. In the twin group, two women (7.4 %) with true PTL delivered in 1.25±1.06 hours and 25 twin cases (92.5 %) had threatened PTL. However, from the 3 triplet cases, one woman with true PTL delivered after 0.5 hour from admission and 2 others had threatened PTL. We found that only 12 women (3.6%) fulfilled the ACOG criteria for PTL and 315 cases (96.3%) were classified as threatened PTL. From the 315 undeliv- ered cases that most of them were discharged from the hospital, 103 women did not come back to deliver in Hafez Hospital and were missed. So overall, 224 mothers and their 247 neonates remained for the final analysis. We found that 121 women from this cohort finally had PTB before 259 days (54%). Considering the fact that totally 6124 deliveries occurred during the study period, the rate of spontaneous PTB following PTL or threatened PTL was found to be 1.97% in this center. Characteristics of the pregnancies which were followed up to delivery are presented in Table 3. Eighty nine women from the singleton group, eighty from the twin group and two women from the triplet group finally had PTB. Figure 1 shows the out- come of pregnancies who were admitted for PSUC in detail. Examination of the neonates after birth showed that 5 singleton babies (2.5%) had anomalies as hy- drops 1 (0.5%), hypospedias 1 (0.5%), polydactily 1 (0.5%), and club foot 2 (1%). However 6 neonates (15.7%) from the twin group had anomalies including hydrops 1 (2.63%), Down syndrome 1 (2.63%), anomalies of the face and extremities 2 (5.2%) and heart disease 2 (5.2%). Three neonates from the tri- WWW.ircmj.com Vol 13 December 2011