Long-term outcomes of pre-term birth

[Guest guest]

NEJM 2008 Volume 359(3): 262-273Long-Term Medical and Social Consequences of Preterm BirthDag Moster, M.D., Ph.D., Rolv Terje Lie, Ph.D., and Trond Markestad, M.D., Ph.D.Background Advances in perinatal care have increased the number of premature babies who survive. There are concerns, however, about the ability of these children to cope with the demands of adulthood.Methods We linked compulsory national registries in Norway to identify children of different gestational-age categories who were born between 1967 and 1983 and to follow them through 2003 in order to document medical disabilities and outcomes reflecting social performance.Results The study included 903,402 infants who were born alive and without congenital anomalies (1822 born at 23 to 27 weeks of gestation, 2805 at 28 to 30 weeks, 7424 at 31 to 33 weeks, 32,945 at 34 to 36 weeks, and 858,406 at 37 weeks or later). The proportions of infants who survived and were followed to adult life were 17.8%, 57.3%, 85.7%, 94.6%, and 96.5%, respectively. Among the survivors, the prevalence of having cerebral palsy was 0.1% for those born at term versus 9.1% for those born at 23 to 27 weeks of gestation (relative risk for birth at 23 to 27 weeks of gestation, 78.9; 95% confidence interval [CI], 56.5 to 110.0); the prevalence of having mental retardation, 0.4% versus 4.4% (relative risk, 10.3; 95% CI, 6.2 to 17.2); and the prevalence of receiving a disability pension, 1.7% versus 10.6% (relative risk, 7.5; 95% CI, 5.5 to 10.0). Among those who did not have medical disabilities, the gestational age at birth was associated with the education level attained, income, receipt of Social Security benefits, and the establishment of a family, but not with rates of unemployment or criminal activity.Conclusions In this cohort of people in Norway who were born between 1967 and 1983, the risks of medical and social disabilities in adulthood increased with decreasing gestational age at birth.(full article available upon request)--  Gee, so incidence of almost everything bad goes up.  I wonder - since most (all?) of these things either have, or could possibly be even sort of plausibility linked to vaccine injury (criminality? by screwing with the HPA axis and oxytocin systems, thus decreasing empathy, stress tolerance, and increasing propensities toward rage, and possibly other neurochemical problems (incresed novelty-seaking - dopamine, lowered harm-avoidance - norephinephrine - yeah, I know that uses Cloninger's old personality model that has holes so big you could drive an Iraqi convoy through them all abreast of each other!)  Pre-term infants are going to have less developed immune systems (sic - even compared to the 'less developed immune systems' of term infants).  If they are low-birth weight too (most probbaly are, but perhaps that's changing with the Fattening Of America (for the kill??), that's probabbly a second strike against them with respect to vaccines, unless we have moved a little out of the Dark Ages (say, into the dusky ages), and scale vaccine volume for blood volume.  I'd hope we'd do this at the dawn of the 21st century.. but then, I thought we would have removed mercury from vaccines earlier than 2001..  Oh, right, we didn't remove - I'd have thought we actually would have recalled it.  At the very least.  Better yet, we should start seeing the new epidemics right under our noses  But of course, you can't see what's right under your nose - and the longer your nose, the harder it is to see things there..  That is, the more you lie.  And with all the lying the FDA, IOM, AAP, etc have been doing lately, their collective nose should reach to the moon if not the asteroid belt, or even beyond!Jim