A Better Chance
More extremely premature infants are surviving than ever before, found a study published in the Jan. 22 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.
Prematurity is still a leading contributor to newborn deaths—one in four extremely premature infants (born at 22 to 28 weeks of gestation) does not survive beyond the birth hospitalization. Each additional week of gestation gives the baby a better chance. Deaths from immaturity or pulmonary causes and complications from infection or central nervous system injury decreased, but deaths due to necrotizing enterocolitis, an intestinal complication resulting from prematurity, increased. Ravi Mangal Patel, a neonatologist at Emory University Hospital and Children's Healthcare of Atlanta, was lead author.
Related Resources:
"Deaths of extremely premature infants decrease; fewer dying of breathing complications" (Emory News Center, 1/21/15)
