Low-birth-weight infants are more likely to survive if born in hospitals having high performing Neonatal Intensive Care Units, revealed by researchers in a recent study.
Premature birth (also known as preterm birth) is defined medically as childbirth occurring earlier than 37 completed weeks of gestation. Most pregnancies last about 40 weeks. The shorter the term of pregnancy, the greater the risks of complications. Infants born prematurely have an increased risk of death in the first year of life (infant mortality), with most of that occurring in the first month of life (neonatal mortality).
Birth weight is the weight of a baby at its birth. It has direct links with the gestational age at which the child was born and can be estimated during the pregnancy by measuring fundal height.
Small for gestational age (SGA) babies are those whose birth weight lies below the 10th percentile for that gestational age. They have usually been the subject of intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR), formerly known as intrauterine growth retardation. Low birth weight, is sometimes used synonymously with SGA, or is otherwise defined as a fetus that weighs less than 2500 g (5 lb 8 oz) regardless of gestational age.
Mortality among very-low-birth-weight infants has been found to be lowest for deliveries that occurred in hospitals with Neonatal Intensive Care Units (NICUs) having both a high level of care and a high volume of such patients. Thus, the increased use of these facilities might reduce mortality among very-low-birth-weight infants.
A research was conducted by Ciaran S. Phibbs, Ph. D., of Stanford, and his team. They examined differences in neonatal mortality among infants with very low birth weight (below 1500 g) among NICUs with various levels of care and different volumes of very-low-birth-weight infants.
According to the report in New England Journal of Medicine (Issue dated May 24), if born in a hospital having NICUs offering high level of care and high patient volume, an estimated 21% of infants weighing less than 1500 g might have lived.