Born Too Soon

The 2012 Born Too Soon report ignited a movement for action on preterm birth.

A decade on, more than 70 organizations have come together to develop an updated report. This report, which has involved more than 140 individuals from 46 countries, takes stock of the journey of the past decade – the good and the bad, the challenges and the opportunities.

Born Too Soon: Decade of Action on Preterm Birth looks to the future, setting an ambitious agenda to reduce the burden of preterm birth.  It highlights inspiring examples of progress and calls for increased investment, implementation, integration, and innovation to accelerate change. Together, we can reduce the burden of preterm birth so that every woman and every newborn, even if facing preterm birth, can survive and thrive.

In 2025, the Born Too Soon: progress, priorities and pivots for preterm birth journal supplement was published in BMC Reproductive Health. The supplement is composed of ten papers: seven articles and three commentaries. The seven articles were adapted and expanded from chapters of the 2023 WHO report Born Too Soon: A Decade of Action on Preterm Birth (ISBN 978-92-4-007389-0).

For this publication, the content was updated and formatted for journal submission, followed by peer review following Reproductive Health’s standard process. These publications ensure the findings are accessible to the wider health and research community in full-text form. The authors updated data, and included additional recent literature, plus new policy development, related to preterm birth and integrated maternal and newborn care.