Identification of causes behind disability of premature infants
Four factors, in addition to gestational age, have been identified by the National Institutes of Health Neonatal Research Network, of which Yale is a member. These factors play a role in determining whether or not an extremely low-weight premature infant survives or thrives.
According to an article in the New England Journal of Medicine by a consortium of researchers in the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), the four factors are birth weight, gender, whether the baby is a twin and whether the mother was given antenatal steroid mediation to aid lung development.
From News-Medical.Net:
The study was a statistical analysis of the health records of 4,446 children born between 22 and 25 weeks of pregnancy and weighing between 401-1,000 grams (about one to two pounds) at birth. Researchers examined which factors, aside from gestational age, influenced the outcomes for extremely low-birth-weight infants. They used a statistical tool called an outcome estimator to assess survival. The researchers found that an infant’s chances of survival without disability were enhanced if they were of older gestational age, their mothers had been given antenatal steroids, they were female, they were singletons rather than part of a multiple birth and they had higher birth weight.
Mark Mercurio, M.D., associate professor of pediatrics at Yale School of Medicine, attending neonatologist at Yale-New Haven Hospital and chair of the Pediatric Ethics Committee, remarked that these new statistical tools will be effective for counseling parents facing agonizing decisions for their extreme preemies.
Tags: antenatal steroids, steroid, Steroids
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