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."