We agree with Dr Turok and colleagues that comprehensive family planning services and appropriate birth spacing play an important role in reducing preterm birth and in improving women and children’s health. However, in the continuum of research needs from discovery sciences to development and delivery of new interventions, family planning has a well-established track record of basic and translational research. The challenges currently faced by family planning are largely in bringing to scale and implementing existing effective reproductive strategies.

The intent of our commentary was to call attention to the critical need for similar integrated and comprehensive basic, translational, and applied research necessary to prevent preterm birth. Although encouraging patients to reduce risks by preventing unwanted pregnancies and optimizing birth spacing, we must advocate for additional research into both normal and abnormal pregnancies to better understand the causes and consequences of adverse birth outcomes that contribute to the worldwide burden of maternal and neonatal morbidity and mortality.