What Are the Changes of Our Smallest Patients? The Follow-Up Study ofChildren of Birth Weight Lower Than 1000 g

Overview

Background.
The neurodevelopmental status of infants of birth weight lower than 1000 g born between 1994–1998at the age of 2 years.Methods and Results. Infants of birth weight lower than 1000 g born between January 1994 and December 1998and discharged from NICU of the Charles University Hospital in Pilsen were followed-up longitudinally. Physical,somatometric, neurologic, ophthalmologic, psychologic (Bayley II Mental Developmental Index) and foniatricassessment was made at 24 months of the corrected age. 143 premature newborns (under 1000 g) were born duringthis period, 91 survived (36.3 %) and were discharged home. 76 children (84 %) were evaluated at the age of 2 years.Children were divided into 3 groups: normal neurodevelopmental outcome, mild and major impairment. 80 % ofchildren were normal., 9 % with mild a 11 % with major impairment in the whole group. According to the birthweight the impairment distribution was as follows. Birth weight 500–749 g: normal developmental outcome –⁠ 71 %,mild –⁠ 18 % and major impairment 11 %. Birth weight 750–999 g: 83 % normal outcome, 4 % mild and 13 % majorimpairment.Conclusions. We determined relatively high proportion (80 %) of normal neurodevelopmental status amongoriginally extremely premature children. Major developmental impairment (mainly cerebral palsy) was found in11 % of children. There was no significant outcome differences between two birth weight cohorts.

Key words:
extremely premature babies, neonatal survival, late morbidity, follow-up.