Sugar-free chewing gum can help prevent premature birth and babies with low birth weights, a new study suggests.

The simple intervention in pregnant women was found to reduce preterm birth by nearly a quarter, while the number of babies weighing 5.5 pounds or less was lowered by 31 per cent.

Decades worth of research has linked poor oral health to increased risk of premature birth.

In particular the bug ‘fusobacterium nucleatum’, which is found in the mouth, has been discovered in the amniotic fluid, placenta, the sac which surrounds the foetus, in women who deliver prematurely.

The new study saw 10,000 pregnant women in Malawi offered oral health advice, with half also being given xylitol chewing gum and instructed to chew the gum for at least 10 minutes once a day.

Xylitol is used as a sugar substitute in many chewing gums, such as Wrigley’s Extra.

“Using xylitol chewing gum as an intervention prior to 20 weeks of pregnancy reduced preterm births, and specifically late preterm births between 34 to 37 weeks,” said the study’s lead author Dr Kjersti Aagaard, Professor in Maternal-Fetal Medicine at Texas Children’s and Baylor College of Medicine in Houston.

“When we analysed by birth weight, instead of estimated gestational age at delivery, we similarly showed a significant improvement in the birth weight with one-third fewer low birth weight babies being born.”

Malawi was chosen because it has the highest premature birth rate in the world – between 7.9 and 29.7 per cent of all pregnancies.

In Britain, around 1 in 13 births are premature, amounting to 60,000 babies born before 37 weeks of pregnancy.

In the study, around 16.5 per cent of women gave birth prematurely, but this was lowered to 12.6 per cent in women using the chewing gum regularly.

Similarly, while 12.9 per cent of women had babies with low birth eight, that fell to 8.9 per cent in the chewing gum group.

It suggests that 177 more babies were born at full term, and 182 at the correct weight than would have happened without the gum.

Long-term health risks of low birth weight

Premature babies are more likely to have chronic health issues such as infections, asthma and feeding problems, as well as being at greater risk of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS).

It can also lead to long-term intellectual, educational and developmental disabilities as well problems with their lungs, brain, eyes and other organs.

A study by the University of Michigan found that being of low birth weight has significant negative effects on adult health, equivalent to being 12 years older when a person reaches their thirties and forties.

Weighing less than 5.5 pounds at birth also increases the probability of being in fair or poor health as an adult by over 70 per cent.

Preventative and inexpensive 

Previously researchers have looked at various ways to improve dental health during pregnancy, including doing a ‘deep-teeth cleaning’ which involves removing plaque and tartar on the teeth and below the gum line.

However, despite improving periodontitics, deep-teeth cleaning approaches have not proven to be effective in the prevention of preterm birth.

“What’s unique about our study is that we used a readily available, inexpensive, and palatable means to reduce the risk of a baby being born too soon or too small,” added Dr Aagaard.

“There is some real science behind the choice of xylitol chewing gum to improve oral health, and our novel application to improving birth outcomes is exciting. This fits with longstanding evidence linking oral health with preterm births.”

The research was published in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology (AJOG) and presented at the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine’s (SMFM) annual meeting.