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(Ivanhoe Newswire) New research may offer hope for extremely preterm infants. Advances in medical interventions have resulted in higher survival rates for extremely preterm infants.
In a study of more than 1,000 extremely preterm infants born in Sweden, researchers found encouraging data on live birth and survival rates. Researchers say improvements in perinatal the period shortly before and after birth medicine have increased infant survival rates so that neonatal the first four weeks after birth intensive care can be life saving.
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Overall, one-year survival was 70 percent in extremely preterm infants born alive at 22 to 26 weeks of gestation in Sweden during 2004-2007, study authors wrote. Proactive perinatal management is likely to have contributed to this outcome. Therefore, non-initiation or withdrawal of intensive care for extremely preterm infants cannot be based solely on a notion of unlikely survival.
Pre-birth treatment with tocolytics (a drug that delays or stops labor), post-birth treatment with surfactant (a fluid that is produced shortly before birth and prevents the lung from filling with water) and birth at a level III hospital were significantly associated with lower risk of infant death.
SOURCE: The Journal of the American Medical Association, 2009;301[21]:2225-2233
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