Growth, developmental milestones and health problems in the first 2 years in very preterm infants compared with term infants: a population based study Received: 5 October 2001 / Revised: 21 November 2001 / Accepted: 26 November 2001 / Published online: 30 January 2002 Ó Springer-Verlag 2002
Abstract The outcome of very preterm infants varies widely from centre to centre and from country to country. The aim of this study was to evaluate growth, developmental milestones and post-discharge morbidity of infants born before 32 weeks of gestation in Switzerland. A questionnaire was sent to the parents of 456 survivors born in 1996. A total of 309 (68%) parents responded and their infants were matched with 309 control infants born at term. At the corrected age of 24 months, the very preterm infants had significantly lower weight (–1.0 z-scores), lower length (–1.23 z-scores), and lower head circumference (–0.64 z-scores). Very preterm infants were reported to eat with a spoon later than those born at term (50% at 7.5 months corrected for prematurity versus 10 months, P3 days and treatment with antibiotics. Conclusion: these data based on a national survey allow to quantify growth retardation, developmental delay and post-discharge health problems within the first 2 years in preterm infants born before 320/7 weeks. Keywords Growth development Æ Health problems Æ Very preterm infants
Introduction In Switzerland, approximately 1% of all live-born infants are born before 32 completed gestational weeks. This high risk group accounts for 40% of all neonatal deaths and occupies about 60% of the available neonatal intensive care beds. In 1995, the Swiss Society of Neonatology founded the Swiss Minimal Neonatal Data Set, an anonymous national registry to document the place and the mode of delivery, the in-hospital mortality and morbidity, and the need for respiratory assistance for these infants [2]. The aim of the present study was to assess the growth, the developmental milestones and the morbidity in the first 2 years after the first hospital discharge. To that purpose, a questionnaire was developed and sent to the parents of very preterm infants born before 32 weeks gestation in 1996, and for comparison to the parents of a matched control group born at term.
152 Meier survival analysis. Significance level was set conventionally at 5%.
Subjects and methods Infants Infants were eligible for inclusion in the index group if they fulfilled the following criteria: (1) born alive between 1 January 1996 and 31 December 1996 in Switzerland, (2) gestational age 2 (n)
508 52 309 147
67 4 42 21
IVH>2 (n) 13.2% 7.7% 13.6% 14.3%
18 5 9 4
PVL (n) 3.5% 9.6% 2.9% 2.7%
15 4 8 3
CLD (n) 3.0% 7.7% 2.6% 2.0%
needed 3.3 times more often special treatments such as physiotherapy or orthoptic therapy (P
