Soroka hospital is the largest delivery room in the Middle East, with close to 60 newborns born every day. With these numbers, our physicians have probably seen every condition considered rare in obstetrics.
Most of the research has been focused at the birth outcomes, e.g. preterm delivery, birth weight, small-to-gestational age (SGA), as well as related to that maternal outcomes, e.g. preeclampsia and PROM, with meteorological conditions, ambient pollution and biomarkers of exposure as the main exposures at study.
- Our team led by Itai Kloog explored the association between temperature and low birth weight (LBW) and small-to-gestational age (SGA) diagnosis on a population of 56,141 term deliveries taking place in Soroka hospital between 2004-2013 (Kloog et al, 2018). The group found lower temperatures throughout pregnancy being associated with increased risk of both outcomes.
- The same team led by Faige Spolter later analyzed 62,547 deliveries between 2004-2013, focusing at late preterm and early-term deliveries as a function of ambient temperature (Spolter et al, 2020). The researchers recorded an increased risk of both outcomes associated with exposure to the highest quintile of temperatures as compared to the central quintile throughout the entire gestation with hazard ratios (HR), 1.31 and 1.24, respectively.