Intelligence of very preterm or very low birthweight infants in young adulthood

Objective: To examine the effect of intrauterine and neonatal growth, prematurity and personal and environmental risk factors on intelligence in adulthood in survivors of the early neonatal intensive care era. Methods: A large geographically based cohort comprised 94% of all babies born alive in the Netherlands in 1983 with a gestational age...

Social Lifestyle, Risk-taking Behavior, and Psychopathology in Young Adults Born Very Preterm or with a Very Low Birthweight

Objective: To assess social lifestyle, risk-taking behavior, and psychopathology in young adults born very preterm or with a very low birthweight. Study design: This study was part of the 19-year follow-up in a large ongoing collaborative study in the Netherlands (the POPS study) on the long-term outcome of prematurity and dysmaturity. 656...

Functional outcomes and participation in young adulthood for very preterm and very low birth weight infants: The Dutch project on preterm and small for gestational age infants at 19 years of age

OBJECTIVE. Young adults who were born very preterm or with a very low birth weight remain at risk for physical and neurodevelopmental problems and lower academic achievement scores. Data, however, are scarce, hospital based, mostly done in small populations, and need additional confirmation. METHODS. Infants who were born at <32 weeks of...

Prevalence and independent risk factors for hearing loss in NICU infants

Aim: To determine the prevalence and independent relationship between hearing loss and risk factors in a representative neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) population. Methods: Automated auditory brainstem response (AABR) hearing screening has been introduced since 1998 in the Dutch NICUs. After a second AABR failure, diagnostic ABR was used to...

Is paediatric assessment of motor development of very preterm and low-birthweight children appropriate?

Aim: To determine whether paediatricians that examine, in regular clinical practice, very preterm and very-low-birthweight children at 5 y of age detect neurological impairments and functional motor problems in these children. Methods: We compared a paediatric judgement, a standardized neurological examination (Touwen examination) and a...

Behavioural and emotional problems in very preterm and very low birthweight infants at age 5 years

Background: Children born very preterm (VP; <32 weeks' gestation) or with very low birth weight (VLBW, <1500 g; hereafter called VP/VLBW) are at risk for behavioural and emotional problems during school age and adolescence. At school entrance these problems may hamper academic functioning, but evidence on their occurrence at this age in VP/VLBW...

Anthropometry of Malawian live births between 35 and 41 weeks of gestation

The aim of this analysis was to construct cross-sectional gestational age specific percentile curves for birthweight, length, head and mid-arm circumference for Malawian babies, and to compare these percentiles with reference values for babies born to women with normal pregnancies, from a developed country. A cross-sectional study which enrolled...

Changes in perinatal care and survival in very preterm and extremely preterm infants in the Netherlands between 1983 and 1995

Objective: To evaluate changes in obstetrical and neonatal care for very preterm and extremely preterm infants between 1983 and 1995 in The Netherlands and to evaluate the effect of those changes. Study design: Data on all very preterm or VLBW infants from the linked national obstetrical and neonatal databases of 1995 (N=2066) were compared to...

Development and evaluation of a follow up assessment of preterm infants at 5 years of age

Background: Long term follow up shows a high frequency of developmental disturbances in preterm survivors of neonatal intensive care formerly considered non-disabled. Aims: To develop and validate an assessment tool that can help paediatricians to identify before 6 years of age which survivors have developmental disturbances that may interfere...

School-age outcomes in children who were extremely low birth weight from four international population-based cohorts

Objective. The aim of this study was to determine whether leaming and school problems in extremely low birth weight (ELBW) and reference children differ between cohorts in different countries. Methods. Participants were 4 international population-based cohorts of ELBW survivors who were 500 to 1000 g birth weight from New Jersey, central-west...

Measuring health status using the Health Utilities Index: Agreement between raters and between modalities of administration

The aim of this study was to evaluate interrater and intermodality agreement in assessing health status using the Health Utilities Index. A random sample from a Dutch cohort of 14-year-old Very Low Birth Weight children and their parents were invited to participate in a face-to-face (n = 150) or telephone (n = 150) interview. All 300...

Behavioural problems in children who weigh 1000 g or less at birth in four countries

Background: The increased survival chances of extremely low-birthweight (ELBW) infants (weighing ≤1000 g at birth) has led to concern about their behavioural outcome in childhood. In reports from several countries with different assessments at various ages, investigators have noted a higher frequency of behavioural problems in such infants, but...

Influence of obstetric management on outcome of extremely preterm growth retarded infants

Aim - To describe the long term outcome of extremely preterm growth retarded infants in relation to obstetric management and various perinatal events. Methods - A cohort study was undertaken in two tertiary care centres with different obstetric management. All infants with fetal growth retardation due to placental insufficiency and resulting in...