In the summer of 2002, a small one-day conference was held at the offices of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists in Washington DC. The purpose of the conference was to consider the implications of the intriguingly converging research areas of peptide regulation by steroids in both brain and placenta, and how these research findings might enhance our understanding of the physiological processes of human gestation and parturition. An important subtext of the discussion was how events and processes at the beginning of life can affect health and well-being decades later. Among the participants were both clinicians and basic scientists; the research presented concerned both human studies and comparative research on animal models; the perspectives examined ranged from clinical medicine to evolutionary biology.

Our understanding of the physiological and regulatory processes that underlie the timing and progression of labor and delivery remains incomplete. Perhaps the most graphic indication of our inadequate understanding of this fundamental biological process is the current lack of accurate and effective clinical tools to either predict or prevent preterm birth. In the USA, the rate of preterm birth continues to rise, and half of preterm births are classified as idiopathic.