Gość: ;-((
IP: *.lodz.mm.pl
15.01.05, 11:29
Reuters Health
By Karla Gale
Wednesday, January 5, 2005
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - More than three-quarters of children who were
born before the 26th week of pregnancy are affected by cognitive and
neurologic impairments by the time they reach school age, British researchers
report.
"There are a number of follow-up studies of preterm babies," Dr. Dieter Wolke
told Reuters Health. "However, there is no real population study of babies
born at the limits of viability," at 22 to 25 weeks into a pregnancy.
Wolke, at the University of Bristol, and his colleagues tested 241 extremely
premature children at an average age of 6 and compared the results with those
of a "control" group made up of 160 classmates born at full term.
Compared with the controls, 41 percent of those born extremely premature had
significantly lower mental functioning, the team reports in this week's New
England Journal of Medicine. Serious impairments were more than twice as
likely in boys than in girls.
Severe disability