Advancing Breakthroughs in Prematurity

Stanford Prematurity Research Center

Prematurity is the leading cause of newborn death and disability in the United States.


And the problem is getting worse. In 2021, preterm birth rates were the highest they have been in a decade. Disparities persist by race, socioeconomic status, and access to medical care. Black infants continue to face worse outcomes than any other demographic.

In the United States:
1 in 10 babies is born premature.
35% of infant deaths are preterm-related.
14.4% preterm birth rate for Black infants, the highest in the nation.

Doctors don't have definitive answers about what causes a baby to be born too early. But at the Stanford Prematurity Research Center, we’re determined to find out.

Our vision is to drastically improve treatment options for babies born too early and predict and prevent premature birth from happening in the first place.

Our success depends on accelerating groundbreaking research and clinical trials, recruiting top physician-scientists, and investing in the tools and technology our experts need to innovate.

Philanthropy will be the key to ushering in a hopeful new future for premature babies and their families.

Meet Shaina and Baby Theo

"My water broke at 25 weeks. I thought for sure my baby would not survive," remembers Shaina. "Before I could even see Theo, he was whisked away to the NICU [neonatal intensive care unit]. My husband, Danny, and I spent the next three months visiting him three or four times a day. Each day when I arrived, I was fearful his incubator would no longer be there.

“I’d never been around premature babies,” Shaina continues. “I didn’t know that they frequently stopped breathing and needed to be resuscitated. This happened to Theo multiple times a day, leaving me desperately helpless as I tried to gently tap and rub on his body so he would be startled into breathing again. In those terrifying moments, Theo’s NICU nurses would be by my side in mere seconds. First, to gently remind me not to worry, and second, to calmly intervene to get Theo breathing and back on track.”

Thanks to the NICU team at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital Stanford—one of the top in the nation—Shaina and Danny were able to take their baby home 90 days after he was born.

Shaina and Danny holding baby Theo in the NICU. Shaina wears a hospital gown. Baby Theo is connected to a breathing tube and wrapped in a blanket.
Theo around 3 years old. He's grinning and wearing a bucket hat and red hoodie. He's holding a garden hose.

Today, Theo is a thriving and active child. "When I watch him enjoying baking, biking, or gardening, I know we are one of the lucky ones. So many babies like Theo don't make it," says Shaina.

My wish is for the tragedy of prematurity to end and for every baby to have the chance for a healthy birth."
Shaina, mom of premature baby Theo


Stanford’s Transdisciplinary Approach

A professional headshot of Dr. David K. Stevenson. He has white hair and wears a black suit.
Premature birth is an all-hands-on-deck kind of problem. It will take collaboration from experts in many different fields to move the needle.”
—David K. Stevenson, MD, Harold K. Faber Professor of Pediatrics and Principal Investigator of the Stanford Prematurity Research Center


Stanford has the best minds—in data science, neonatology, engineering, artificial intelligence, and more—often working just steps away from each other on the same campus. What's more, Packard Children's Hospital takes the unique approach of treating moms and babies together at our Johnson Center for Pregnancy and Newborn Services, rather than separately in pediatric and adult medicine departments. This makes us the ideal place to take on a problem that affects both a pregnant woman and her child.

A decade ago, however, most of these Stanford experts weren't working on prematurity. We had a few dedicated researchers, but they needed a platform to help share ideas and collaborate across disciplines.

In 2011, under the leadership of legendary neonatologist Dr. David K. Stevenson, Stanford adopted a new research model that would attract a diverse range of the most outstanding scientists, combining the expertise of their specialties to make a whole that is more powerful than its parts. The Prematurity Research Center was born.

Now more than ever, philanthropy will be critical to ending preventable premature birth.

The Path Forward

Over the last 10+ years, the Stanford Prematurity Research Center has honed a high-yielding, transdisciplinary process of innovation in the lab and the clinic.


Step 1: Uncover the Causes of Premature Birth Through Basic Science Research

Before we can invent new treatments for predicting and preventing premature birth, we must first uncover what is causing it on a cellular and genetic level. This process is called basic science—understanding the biology behind the condition.

Step 2: Develop Diagnostic Tools That Allow Doctors to Take Action

Building on the foundation of basic science, our innovators are developing cutting-edge tools like AI data analysis and simple blood and urine tests to identify which pregnancies are at risk of an early delivery.


Step 3: Pinpoint New Leads for Treatments

Leveraging their wide-ranging expertise, our multidisciplinary team works together to invent new interventions to bring to patients, such as developing technology to identify existing FDA-approved drugs that can be repurposed to prevent premature birth.

Step 4: Pilot Proof-of-Concept Studies

A potential new treatment is tested in a small-scale lab study before we begin first-in-human clinical trials. These findings prove that the treatment is effective and safe to be used broadly.

Step 5 : Drive Large-Scale Clinical Trials

Proven treatments are tested on volunteer patients. For the most thorough results, Stanford researchers serve as principal investigators and enroll patients at hospitals across the country. Their efforts prove that a new treatment is ready to start helping patients everywhere.


On the Horizon: Transformative Solutions

Philanthropy will be the fuel that keeps us moving forward as we take on the biggest questions in prematurity:


Success Story:
Applying Artificial Intelligence to Delicate Patient Care

With artificial intelligence, care teams will be able to prevent these terrible diseases from happening instead of just reacting to them.”
—Nima Aghaeepour, PhD

Nima Aghaeepour, PhD, is a world-renowned pioneer in using artificial intelligence (AI) to anticipate risks for pregnant women and newborns. He is leading efforts to bring this emerging technology to Packard Children’s.

Using hundreds of thousands of anonymized electronic medical records, AI can help doctors choose the best treatment plan based on thousands of past successes, or even know when to deliver preventive therapies before symptoms arise. “Even at a top institution like Stanford, AI can see what doctors can’t,” Dr. Aghaeepour says.

His team has already made unprecedented discoveries. Through in-depth analysis of biological samples, they pinpointed biomarkers in the blood and urine of pregnant women that could predict preeclampsia—dangerous high blood pressure in an expecting mother—months before symptoms emerge. More recently, by reviewing anonymized electronic health records of moms and babies using a machine learning algorithm, his team found that they could determine, even before birth, which infants were likely to face health issues.

Dr. Aghaeepour (right) consulting with Dr. Lance Prince, head of the NICU at Packard Children's.


AI-based interventions are already being used in the NICU at Packard Children’s with great success. One such project employs AI to create nutritional supplements for newborns in intensive care, automatically generating a custom treatment with the right levels of sodium, potassium, calcium, and other nutrients that each individual child needs.

Dr. Aghaeepour knows these innovations are just scratching the surface of what’s possible. He envisions a future where AI is a silent member of care teams around the world, diagnosing health challenges before they start and guiding more targeted interventions.

Donor support will be vital to achieving this goal. “We need the investment of visionaries who can see the promise of innovation long before it has become the standard way of doing things,” he says.

Philanthropy Is Critical to Ending Premature Birth

We’ve figured out where we need to go to conquer preterm birth. The more resources we have, the faster we can get there.”
—Dr. David K. Stevenson

Donor support will catalyze our work in the areas of highest need:



Expand Our Transdisciplinary Team of Experts

Recruit and support researchers who will pursue promising leads and forge new frontiers. Examples include neonatologists improving care for critically ill newborns, and data scientists creating predictive models to identify new interventions for predicting and preventing premature birth.




Kickstart Early-Stage Research

Support faculty teams to launch high-risk, high-reward research projects that are too early in development to attract support from other funding sources like government or industry.




Invent New Diagnostic Tools

Develop a wide range of effective tests for predicting and preventing premature birth—from complex data models processed through AI, to a simple urine test strip that can be used in low-resource settings.



Launch Proof-of-Concept Studies

Conduct promising pilots for diagnostic tests and therapeutics, giving our scientists a launchpad for securing additional funding from government or industry. Philanthropy will also help start new pilots as they are developed.



Fuel Large-Scale Clinical Trials

Complete or begin new clinical trials as they are developed to confirm efficacy and move diagnostic tests and therapeutics into clinics as soon as possible.


To learn more about how you can support the Prematurity Research Center, please contact:

Jennifer Stameson
Vice President, Major Gifts
(650) 461-9953; Jennifer.Stameson@LPFCH.org