Mar. 2, 2012 A research paper which demonstrates that babies
born even just a few weeks early have worse health outcomes than
full term babies has been published on the British Medical
Journal website. The authors, from the Universities of
Leicester, Liverpool, Oxford, Warwick and the National Perinatal
Epidemiology Unit studied over 18,000 British babies born
between September 2000 and August 2001. Health outcomes were
studied when the infants reached nine months, three years and
five years. Health outcomes assessed included height, weight and
BMI, whilst parents also reported on number of hospital visits,
long-standing illness, disability or infirmity, wheezing, use of
prescribed medication and overall rating of child's health. The
authors report that both moderate / late preterm (32-36 weeks)
and early term (37-38 weeks) babies required re-admission to
hospital in the first few months more often than full term
babies (39-41 weeks). Those born between 33 and 36 weeks had an
increased risk of asthma and whee