Morphology of placental villi after premature delivery and its clinical relevance.

Based on a new concept of maturation of the placental villous tree and its disorders (synchronous and asynchronous immaturity, asynchronous maturity, hypermaturity, and terminal villi deficiency) we studied the possible effect of the placental villous tree on the premature onset of labour. In mature normal neonates irregular and asynchronous villous patterns were found in 50% of cases. In prematurely delivered neonates, only 33% of the corresponding placentas show synchronous immature villous patterns. Uterine bleeding in the first trimester was associated with a 42% of incidence of premature maturation of the villous tree. These findings strengthen the idea that hormonal imbalance in early pregnancy influenced villous development. In "prematurity without recognizable cause" there was a higher percentage of villous maldevelopment (33%) than that previously described in the literature. In severe pre-eclampsia combined with premature onset of labour, 60% of our cases showed hypermaturity of the villous trees. Synchronous immaturity was reduced to 15%. We conclude, that even a rather rough definition of the histological features of placental villi is sufficient to produce numerous correlations between clinical events preceding premature delivery and placental structure. So the influence of placenta on the premature onset of labour needs more attention.