TNF and bacterial vaginosis: New risk factors for PTB, such as experience of racial discrimination, stress during pregnancy, domestic violence against women, lack of social support, maternal infections (bacterial vaginosis, infections of the oral cavity and urinary tract infections) genetic susceptibility (polymorphisms in the coding of TNF-α and CRH), and medical interventions will be evaluated under the present protocol [12, 13, 17, 20, 25, 33].