Preterm Birth of Extremely Low Birth Weight Infants

Approximately 13% of births in the United States are preterm, defined as occurring before 37 weeks of gestation. This results in more than 540,000 infants a year born prematurely. In other words, one out of every 8 infants is born premature. Even more disturbing is that despite advances in neonatal and perinatal medicine, the incidence of prematurity has increased by 36% since the 1980’s. Over 1 million infants die worldwide every year because of consequences that are related to being born too soon. Every 30 seconds one infant dies of preterm birth. Approximately 1.5% of infants in the United States are born less than 27 weeks gestation which accounts for approximately 100,000 infants annually. Even infants born just a few weeks too soon (34-36 weeks gestations), also known as late preterm birth, have higher rates of death and disability than full term infants. Table 1 describes the evolution of technology in the obstetrical and pediatric management of premature birth in the United States in the last 60 years.