Nurse Natasha Stephen will take samples from 20 pregnant women to find out when fetal fibronectin appears. (Patricia Bell/CBC)

Nunavut health officials say research now underway could help expectant mothers in isolated and rural communities across Canada find out when they could be entering labour, allowing them to stay in their home communities longer.

As part of the Nunavut pilot research project, researchers will take regular vaginal swabs from 20 women who are in the later stages of pregnancy to find out when the fetal fibronectin protein appears. The protein appears in a woman's vagina when she is likely to go into labour.

A similar test is already being used successfully to predict early labour. If the protein is not present at the 36-week mark of pregnancy, the chances of a woman giving birth within a week would be next to zero.

Researchers now hope to see whether the fetal fibronectin test would work closer to the due date.

"This study, if it proves to have interesting findings, has implications for women who live in many parts of Canada who are more than an hour or two from the nearest birthing centre," Dr. Sandy MacDonald, Nunavut's director of medical affairs and a lead researcher in the project, told CBC News.

"If this test was reliable in normal pregnancies, closer to term, then we could safely let women stay home later in their pregnancy and not have to be away from home for so long."

Pregnant women in isolated northern communities often have to travel by medevac to hospitals in larger centres, such as Iqaluit, to give birth.

"A lot of them have small children, are separated from their spouses, and find the time here very lonely," said Natasha Stephen, a nurse working on the pilot study from Iqaluit.

MacDonald said the fetal fibronectin test for early labour has saved the Nunavut government hundreds of thousands of dollars in medevac costs for women showing false signs of labour.

The Nunavut team is working with researchers in Ottawa and Vancouver on the fetal fibronectin pilot project. If it is a success, MacDonald said they will launch a major study involving more than 100 pregnant women from Nunavut and elsewhere.