A study just released shows many will have developmental issues that play out during the school years. This is an example of how technology and medical advances have improved outcomes but created new sets of problems.
More and more children who are born prematurely survive, but it comes with a price: developmental abnormalities ranging from hearing and sight problems to cognitive deficits.

Dr. Andres Rebarber of NYU Medical Center says, “It’s a complex issue, premature birth rates have actually increased in the United States because of the issues surrounding delayed child bearing, and the increase in the number of multiple gestations.”
For many reasons, children born prematurely and who would not have survived, are now successfully nurtured and discharged from the neonatal intensive care unit. But years later, once in school, many of these children have lingering problems.
New research in the New England Journal of Medicine shows that extremely preterm children, meaning children born before 26 weeks of age, have significant degrees of disability.
More than 40% had cognitive, or intelligence deficits compared to their classmates. If the disability was present at 30 months of age, it was likely to be present at six years of age.
20% had cerebral palsy, and many children could not walk. More than half the cases of cerebral palsy were either moderate or severe.
“Looking at the other side, about 80% of the children did not have this. A significant proportion of kids did not have disabilities. And so an interpretation depends on whether you’re a pessimist or an optimist,” says Dr. Rebarber.
The fact is, active brain development occurs during the last two trimesters. A pregnancy cut short at 25 weeks is depriving the brain of key finishing touches.
“So it isn’t just oxygenation, it isn’t just brain injury, it may just be the actual wiring in utero, and some of the hormonal environments that are present inside that may impact on the wiring of the brain that may not be capable of occurring in the post natal period in the NICU,” states Dr. Rebarber.
Although the majority of children born at fewer than 26 weeks have cognitive scores within the low-normal range, parents might consider talking to developmental specialists, or look into programs to enrich their children early on in life.
“Certain stimuli do make an impact on brain development and cognitive abilities as well as socialization skills,” Dr. Rebarber says.

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