The QUiPP App: a safe alternative to a treat‐all strategy for threatened preterm labor

What is it about?

Recent national guidelines have suggested that all women who are less than 30 weeks of pregnancy with any symptoms suggestive of premature labour should be admitted and receive treatments (e.g. steroids, transfer of pregnant mothers between hospitals, drugs to try and stop contractions) without any tests.  This study suggests that a treat-all policy such as this would increase unnecessary intervention 9-fold compared to use of quantitative fetal fibronectin and the QUIPP app, without any benefit to women.  We recommend that prediction methods should be used before 30 weeks to determine management until there is evidence that such high levels of unnecessary intervention do less harm than the very rare false negatives of these tests.

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