Preemies Struggle Throughout Life, Study Says

Every one knows that premature babies are more prone to health problems but a new study found that such babies are more shy! The researchers found that children born prematurely are very timid, less likely to get married and have a family.

Premature babies, also known as preemies are too eager to come out in the world and they have to face the challenges from the time of their birth due to their low birth weight and undeveloped organs. But Dag Moster, co-author of the study says that due to advancement in the medical technologies and special care of premature babies, infant mortality rates after premature delivery has come down. Better survival in preemies may come at the cost of disabilities and hurdles in adulthood, he said.

Premature birth or preemies are the infants born before the due date that is, those born prior to 37 weeks gestation are termed as born premature. Prematurity makes these babies susceptible and they need special care for their continued existence.

Along with shy nature, premature babies are more likely to have serious medical conditions such as cerebral palsydefine (an injury to the brain that leads to an inability to control body movements and coordination), mental retardation and getting a disability payment in the adulthood, reports Norwegian scientists.

In the long term such babies are likely to be unemployed or have jobs with low income as the premature birth does affect the education level.

Lead author of the study, Dag Moster, a neonatologist at the Haukeland University Hospital and team said, "Recent advances in the care of premature infants have resulted in increasing rates of survival.”

"However, the increased prevalence of medical disabilities, learning difficulties, and behavioral and psychological problems among surviving preterm infants has raised concerns that these infants may have difficulties coping with adult life."

Still, Moster added, "The optimistic view is that the majority of preterm survivors in our study do not have medical disabilities and seem to function very well as adults."

Norwegian researchers looked at the health and birth records of 903,402 babies born prematurely (at least before 23 weeks) between year 1967 to 1983, without any congenital anomalies in Norway.

The babies in the study were stratified according to their gestational ages:

1,822 babies (born between 23 and 27 weeks of gestation)
2,805 babies (born between 28 and 30 weeks)
7,424 babies (born between 31 and 33 weeks)
A little less than 33,000 babies (born between 34 and 36 weeks) and the rest of the babies were born 37 weeks or later.

The full term babies had 0.1 percent risk of cerebral palsy, as compared to 9.1 percent in preemies born at 23 to 27 weeks. The prevalence of mental retardation was 0.4 percent among babies born at full term, as compared with 4.4 percent for babies born between 23 and 27 weeks.

1.7 percent of full-term babies were receiving a disability pension as adults versus 10.6 percent of the most premature babies.

The researcher said the study did not found any association between premature birth and unemployment, violence or other criminal behavior in adult life.

Moster added, "It is important to emphasize that most premature children who survived without medical disabilities completed higher education, had good jobs and appeared to function well as adults."

Moster said that babies who are born at fewer than 31 weeks of gestation are at higher risk of suffering from autism and schizophrenia, though the result was based on small number of preemies.

The findings appear in the July 17 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine and the study was supported by the University of Bergen and the Western Norway Regional Health Authority.

An increase in premature birth can be seen nowadays specially in developed nations as people are going out for more fertility treatments, multiple births and adopting cesarean sections.

The U.S. government statistics show that the last two decade saw an increasing rate of premature births reaching an estimated 12.8 percent of births in 2006, which means 1 in eight babies is born premature. In 2006 only, more than 540,000 babies were born premature. In the US, premature birth rates among black women are higher than among white mothers.

In April 2008, a Canadian study found that 1 out of four toddlers born prematurely showed early signs of autism and the risk was greatest among those children who were the smallest at birth.

Since the gestational age, birth weight and overall maturity of a premature baby is less than that in a standard term of pregnancy (40 weeks gestation) , prematurity brings about some common problems, including difficulty in breathing, difficulty in feeding and poor digestion, low heart rate, anemia, immature kidney function, erratic blood pressure and susceptibility to brain hemorrhagedefine.

Preemies need special care after they are born which is often provided in Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU).