Nursing's contribution to the literature on preterm labor and birth.

Although preterm labor and birth continues to plague us as an unsolved mystery in maternal/child health, much has actually been learned over the past few decades. Most reviews of the preterm labor literature examine the research in an interdisciplinary manner; this article instead looks at the active role that nurses have taken in the research concerning preterm labor and birth. This article will categorize research conducted by nurses over the past 30 years on preterm labor and birth, emphasizing some of the changes in nursing practice engendered by nursing's important research effort.