Premature birth has long-term effects

[Al-khiyal]

Premature birth has long-term effects

March 26, 2008 -- Premature birth has consequences for children right into adulthood, according a study in Norway based on an analysis of more than a million births. Premature infants have an increased risk of dying in late childhood compared with healthy babies, and they are significantly less likely to have children themselves. Mothers who were premature are more likely to give birth early as well.

The researchers say the extra lifetime burden of premature birth should be better recognised by doctors and taken into consideration when making decisions about treatment later in life.

According to the premature baby support charity Bliss, about one in eight babies, or 80,000 a year, are born prematurely in the UK. Of these, 17,000 need intensive care.

The team looked at comprehensive official Norwegian records of births, deaths and education for people born between 1967 and 1976. Each person in the country has a unique record number which allows the three databases to be combined. For the oldest cases the team were able to follow people to the age of 35.

Of the 1,167,506 singleton births the team looked at, 60,354 were premature, defined as before 37 weeks gestation. Among the children born very prematurely (22 to 27 weeks), they found that mortality rates among boys and girls were 5.3 and 9.7 times higher in early childhood. In late childhood boys were seven times more likely to die than other children. Even boys born less prematurely, at between 28 and 32 weeks, had higher mortality. In early and late childhood they were 2.5 and 2.3 times more likely to die than children born on time.

"The most surprising result was the high age in these boys and girls where we saw increased mortality," said Professor Rolv Skjaerven, of the University of Bergen. "All the way up to teenage years we find a pretty strong lack of survival for the early pre-terms."

His colleague Dr Geeta Swamy, at Duke University medical centre in North Carolina, said although premature infants were at greater risk, the absolute level of mortality was still low (of the order of 1% or less). "It's not an absolute cause for alarm that if your child is born pre-term something terrible is going to happen to it," she said.

Very premature children were also much less likely to have children themselves. Only 14% of men and 25% of women had had their own child, compared with 50% of men and 68% of women who were born at term. Pre-term children were also less likely to finish high school. The results are reported today in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Swamy said doctors and parents were typically vigilant in the first months of the life of a premature infant, but the study suggested they needed special treatment for longer. "Maybe there needs to be a little more focus and heightened awareness about conditions that might occur as they grow up and into adolescence," she said.

In an editorial, Dr Melissa Adams of RTI International and Dr Wanda Barfield of the Centres for Disease Control in Atlanta argue that doctors need to be more aware of the long-term burden imposed by prematurity. "Because lifetime risk of poor health is increased among individuals who were born pre-term, patients should inform their clinicians about their history of pre-term birth," they write.

Several conditions can lead to premature delivery, including multiple pregnancy, gestational diabetes, pre-eclampsia or a stressful event such as long-distance air travel. But about a third of premature births happen for no apparent reason.

[Bent_Bladi]

*worried*

my little sister was born 4 months early... she had a lot of problems; respiratory, heart... we almost lost her cuz of a nurse who handled her roughly... the freak shoved the breathing device harshly up my sister's nose and tore the cartilage between the two nostrils...

bas alhamdulilah she's 10 years old now --- and inshaAllah she'll grow up normally like everyone else.... They should test the fertility of pre-mature ARABS... lol... NOTHING can stop us when it comes to reproduction

[amalgamate]

lol! you're right. They keep going and going and going...

Allah yishfina ajma3een.

[Bent_Bladi]

remember my sister's comment about my grandmothers overactive uterus? LOL

[amalgamate]

haha yea i do

I think all our grandma's had 'overactive' uteruses,

having 14 kids ain't easy you know. Maybe they thought the process of 'raising' their kids was upon everyone else but themselves. so with that in mind, they put no restrictions