They often look and seem like full-term babies, but new research suggests that babies born at 34 to 37 weeks are more likely than their 37-to-40-week peers to face developmental or behavioral delays or disabilities, require special education, and be held back in kindergarten.
Published in the journal Pediatrics, the study compared more than seven thousand late preemies with more than 150,000 full-term babies (all of them healthy singleton births). The late preemies faced developmetal delay or disability at rates 36% higher than their term peers, and their rate of suspension in kindergarten was 19% higher. In addition, researchers found a 10 to 13% increase in incidence of other problems, including being held back in kindergarten or needing special education.
Most babies, of course, are born at term (defined as anything from 37 to 42 weeks), but an increasing number are born prematurely, the largest bulk of these in the late premie category -- the numbers for all premature births in the United States have jumped from 9.4% in 1981 to 12.3% in 2003. Reasons for the rise aren't entirely clear, but some doctors are expressing concern that obstetricians and patients are unaware of the risks of even seemingly small amounts of prematurity.
From the New York Times article about the study:
“The biggest take-home point is that the late-preterm baby is not
exactly the same as the term baby,” said Dr. Steven Benjamin Morse, an
author of the study and an associate professor of pediatrics at University of Florida.
“They go home from the hospital in two to three days, and they look
great, and they act like full-term babies,” he said. “But now we’ve
found that they do have some increased risk of problems when they enter
school. We were surprised.”
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