Abstract
During 1978-89 about 16 000 infants were bom yearly in the catchment area of the NICU at the Children's Hospital, University of Helsinki. The number of all extremely low birthweight infants (ELWBWI, bw <1000 g) varied between 44 and 80/year. The number of ELBWI admitted to the NICU increased from less than 20 to about 40/year. The mortality rate remained relatively stable at about 40% and thus the number of survivors increased form 8 to 25/year. Especially the number of survivors below 800g and below 27 gestational weeks increased. Despite of this increasing proportion the rate of intraventrical hemorrhage is decreasing (from 50% to 15%).
The proportion of children with normal neurodevelopment during the second year of life increased from 40-70% during the early 5 years to 63-84% during the last 3 years. The proportion of children with major disability decreased from 28% to 8%. Poor neurological outcome was associated with sepsis in the NICU, early year of birth, IVH, poor socio-economic status and low birthweight. The early neurological status correlated well with the outcome at 4 years of age.
The improved techniques in neonatal care have increased the probability of survival in ELBWI without increasing the number of disabled children among them.
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Virtanen, M., Pohjavuori, M. & Järvenpää, A. 45 IMPROVING OUTCOME OF INFANTS WITH BIRTHWEIGHT <1000 G. A POPULATION BASED ANALYSIS OF 12 YEARS PERIOD. Pediatr Res 30, 635 (1991). https://doi.org/10.1203/00006450-199112000-00075
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1203/00006450-199112000-00075