Every week we bring Babies and more news about premature babies. Sometimes we talk about the increasingly hopeful therapeutic advances that make possible a better survival and quality of life, and sometimes echoing the consequences that these babies may have in their lives.
Today appears in the newspaper The country An interesting article entitled "Premature children are saved, but there are sequels." It collects data about the difficulties of these babies to get ahead, the increase in cases of premature births in recent years, the importance of an early stimulation of the little ones for a better development ...
In the print edition there is also a collection of interesting data that summarizes the survival rates, the most pronounced difficulties in newborns and subsequent problems.
According to the SEN report of the year 2006 (Spanish Society of Neonatology), these are the survival percentages in premature babies weighing less than 1500 grams, depending on the week of gestation in which they were born:
Advertising- Less than 24 weeks: 10%
- 24 weeks: 38%
- From 25 weeks: 52%
- From 26 weeks: 63%
- From 27 weeks: 82%
- 28 weeks: 87%
- More than 29 weeks: 90%
According to JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association), the main difficulties in premature babiesNewborns are:
- Breathe because of the immaturity of the lungs. Mechanical breathing can also be complicated for the newborn.
- Regulate body temperature. At this point we have seen the effectiveness of the kangaroo method, in addition to knowing the operation of the incubators.
- Feeding on the immaturity of the digestive system. Many times we insist on the suitability of breast milk to minimize future problems.
- Anemia, due to the lack of red blood cells to transport oxygen to the tissues.
- Intracranial hemorrhages
Also according to JAMA, we find that the problems that premature babies can manifest in the long term are:
- Apnea or brief interruption of breathing.
- Bronchopulmonary dysplasia, due to treatment with artificial respirators due to pulmonary immaturity.
- Vision problems (such as myopia, retinopathy or blindness).
- Hearing problems: The sense of hearing is also often affected.
- Cognitive and emotional difficulties (personality problems, autism ...). According to the article, the cerebral palsy It affects 9% of large premature infants and minor cognitive delays affect 25% of them.
In any case, we always have the hope that medical advances will make the quality of life of premature children the best possible in the future. Experience says that it is possible, and that premature babies have fewer and fewer risks.
Even the smallest baby in the world manages to get ahead and the consequences are minimized despite all these difficulties. As it happened with another baby of 300 grams that has overcome the complications.
