Although the infant mortality rate in Louisiana has decreased, Louisiana still has one of the highest infant mortality rates in the nation. Two-thirds of the infant deaths occur in the neonatal period (birth through 28 days of age). The primary factor associated with death in the neonatal period is low birth weight. However, the likelihood of survival for low birth weight infants can be influen...

Low birth weight (LBW) is common in humans and has been found to cause lasting cognitive and developmental deficits later in life. It is thought that the primary cause is intra-uterine growth restriction (IUGR) due to a shortage of oxygen and supply of nutrients to the fetus. Pigs appear to be a good model animal to investigate long-term cognitive effects of LBW, as LBW is common in commerciall...

The aim of this study was to clarify the effects of gestational age and birth weight on outcomes of the infants. Medical records of 36 infants with trisomy 18 admitted to Tokyo Women's Medical University Hospital from 1991 to 2012 were reviewed retrospectively. We compared clinical characteristics between term infants (n = 15) and preterm infants (n = 21). There were one very-low-birth-weight (...

This study was conducted to describe the incidence, risk factors, and current treatment status of retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) in very-low-birth-weight (VLBW) infants registered in the Korean Neonatal Network database. Medical records of 2,009 VLBW infants born between January 2013 and June 2014 who underwent examination by an ophthalmologist were reviewed. The total incidence of ROP was 34...

Postnatal growth failure in preterm infants is due to interactions between genetic and environmental factors, which are not fully understood. We assessed dietary supply of nutrients in very-low-birth-weight (VLBW, < 1500 g) infants fed fortified human milk, and examined the association between nutrient intake, medical factors and growth during hospitalisation lasting on average 70 d. We studied...

BACKGROUND To compare neonatal mortality and neurodevelopmental outcomes at two years of age in very low birth weight infants (≤1500 g) born by cesarean with those by vaginal delivery. METHODS In this retrospective, case-control study, we evaluated neonatal mortality, medical conditions and neurodevelopmental outcomes at two years of corrected age in 710 very low birth weight (VLBW) infants b...

Vitamin A is involved in regulation of fetal lung growth. It protects the preterm lung from oxidative damage. It maintains the integrity of respiratory tract epithelium and helps in differentiation of epithelial cells. In addition, it is necessary for the formation of photosensitive visual pigment in the retina. Preterm neonates, especially very low birth weight (VLBW) have lower concentrations...

CONTEXT Infants who are very preterm (born < or = 32 weeks of gestation) and very low birth weight (VLBW) (weighing < or = 1500 g) are at risk for poor developmental outcomes. There is increasing evidence that very preterm birth and VLBW have a considerable effect on motor development, although findings are inconsistent. OBJECTIVE To investigate the relationship between very preterm birth and...

Though spontaneous closure of the ductus is the norm in term newborns, two-thirds of very low birth weight (VLBW) babies have spontaneous closure in the first seven days of life and only 30% of extremely low birth weight (ELBW) close their ductus during the neonatal period [1]. A PDA in a VLBW baby is associated (though not causal) with adverse outcomes like bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD), in...

In preterm children with very low birth weight (VLBW ≤ 1500 g), reading problems are often observed. Reading comprehension is dependent on word decoding and language comprehension. We investigated neural activation-within brain regions important for reading-related to components of reading comprehension in young VLBW adolescents in direct comparison to normal birth weight (NBW) term-born peers,...